TY - GEN
T1 - Proof of Necessary Work
T2 - 27th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security, FC 2023
AU - Kattis, Assimakis
AU - Bonneau, Joseph
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024, The Author(s).
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Blockchain-based payment systems utilize an append-only log of transactions whose correctness can be verified by any observer. Classically, verification costs grow linearly in either the number of transactions or blocks in the blockchain (often both). Incrementally Verifiable Computation (IVC) can be used to enable constant-time verification, but generating the necessary proofs is expensive. We introduce the notion of Proof of Necessary Work (PoNW), in which proof generation is an integral part of the proof-of-work used in Nakamoto consensus, producing proofs using energy that would otherwise be wasted. We implement and benchmark a prototype of our system, enabling stateless clients to verify the entire blockchain history in about 40 milliseconds.
AB - Blockchain-based payment systems utilize an append-only log of transactions whose correctness can be verified by any observer. Classically, verification costs grow linearly in either the number of transactions or blocks in the blockchain (often both). Incrementally Verifiable Computation (IVC) can be used to enable constant-time verification, but generating the necessary proofs is expensive. We introduce the notion of Proof of Necessary Work (PoNW), in which proof generation is an integral part of the proof-of-work used in Nakamoto consensus, producing proofs using energy that would otherwise be wasted. We implement and benchmark a prototype of our system, enabling stateless clients to verify the entire blockchain history in about 40 milliseconds.
KW - consensus algorithms
KW - proof-of-work
KW - zero-knowledge proofs
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85180622884&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85180622884&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-031-47751-5_2
DO - 10.1007/978-3-031-47751-5_2
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85180622884
SN - 9783031477508
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 18
EP - 35
BT - Financial Cryptography and Data Security - 27th International Conference, FC 2023, Revised Selected Papers
A2 - Baldimtsi, Foteini
A2 - Cachin, Christian
PB - Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Y2 - 1 May 2023 through 5 May 2023
ER -