The Usechain project is offering the blockchain a new consensus algorithm called “RPOW CONSENSUS ALGORITHM”. In a nutshell, this new consensus proposes to bring about a higher scalability to the blockchain. The approach of the Usechain team to the problem of network consensus makes it a particularly interesting feature of the Usechain project. In this article, we would be looking at the RPoW (Randomized Proof of Work) in comparison with the two most fundamental algorithms PoW (Proof of Work) and PoS (Proof of Stake).
Proof-of-Work: In summary, the underlying assumption behind proof of work is that “if there is that for something to be valid, then a real amount of effort must have been invested into it”. The Proof-of-work is a more reliable way of reaching a consensus since it implies that there are rational behavior and motivation. In other words, nobody will put efforts into something that won’t likely to bring some kind of reward in the end. So, it can be agreed that the proof-of-work is a really meaningful way to reach a consensus, somewhat guaranteeing that the majority agrees on something really sensible. The problems of this approach in the realm of cryptocurrencies are well known: they are related to the heavy overhead in terms of computational resources consumed by such a system.
Proof-of-Stake is a better alternative to the Proof-of-Work algorithm because it does not require as many resources in terms of computational and electrical power, unlike the PoW. But it is worthy of note that the PoS algorithm also has its own problems including those related to an imbalance, produced by the situation when the system’s participants with a larger amount of money have more weight in the voting process. Without getting further into technical details, it’s worth mentioning that PoS algorithm has multiple implementations, differing by various additional conditions.
We have briefly discussed the two widely used and most fundamental algorithms, PoW and PoS, designed to ensure that network’s participants act in a way beneficial for the network, in blockchain terms; confirming correct transactions and rejecting those incorrect or formed with malicious intent. The Usechain project developed a modification of PoW algorithm that allegedly will be as reliable as PoW but without PoW’s traditional ills: slow transaction confirmation speed and excessive resource consumption.
The proposed concept is called RPoW or Randomized Proof of Work. The crux of the matter is that the system adds a coefficient of “easiness” to the process of block hashing. This coefficient is randomly assigned to some of the miners. The way I understand this, it implies that the difficulty of hashing for those miners is reduced, so they have an advantage, regarding the block hash calculation. The project claims that this approach can solve the problems of heavy resource consumption and network scalability. Speaking of resource consumption, indeed, even a perfunctory look into this idea reveals that, in fact, such system won’t be relying on heavy calculations anymore. This leads to a lot of implications. For example, mining rewards won’t depend on the amount of computational power the miner possesses. Rather the system will pick lucky miners, allowing them to hash the block without any problems. In this situation, having expensive hardware or the whole mining farm, filled with mining equipment and cooling systems, doesn’t give any advantage. In other words, anybody with any kind of computer will be able to mine blocks, but the potential profits will depend on the luck of being chosen by the algorithm. Theoretically, it upsets the balance of the classical PoW paradigm, where the correctness of the blockchain is guaranteed by the assumption that the majority of miners is always going to act reasonably. For example, if there’s branching on the blockchain, the majority will work on the correct branch, making it longer faster. (as a result incorrect branch “withers”)
On the other hand, when the RPoW system picks a group of miners from the overall pool of miners, what chance is there that they’ll suddenly conspire and decide to add the block to the wrong subchain? And, once again, for any insidious scheme to succeed in this situation, multiple randomly picked groups of miners have to repeat this subversive action over and over again. In fact, it’s interesting that the other miners, facing the standard high computational difficulty of hashing, are still going to work on the puzzle as well. It means that mining farms will be competing with individual miners with a reduced level of hashing difficulty. It’s hard to predict right off the bat how such system is going to work, but it seems like it creates another kind of balance based on a combination of two different mechanisms working at the same time: the classical Proof-of-Work and a system, which is more similar to the voting process than mining.
CONCLUSION
All in all, the Usechain project has a number of interesting technical ideas and proposals. Currently, there’s a lot of different experimental consensus algorithms aiming at replacing Proof-of-Work, without any of them having a definitive lead. In this situation, any new idea in this area is worth noting because a new winner among consensus algorithms is yet to be named.
It should also be noted that the Usechain presale is currently on at the price of 1eth=100,000 UST and will soon be followed by the public sale which will be priced at 1eth=75,000UST.
For more information or if you would like to contact the team, below are some useful links.
Website: http://www.usechain.net/
Whitepaper: http://www.usechain.net/usechain_en.pdf
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UsechainFoundation
Twitter: https://twitter.com/usechain
Telegram: https://t.me/usechaingroup
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