Introduction

I am proposing the first third generation blockchain consensus model: “Staked Proof-of-Work”.

This is a hybrid of both first and second generation models: Proof-of-Work and Leased Proof-of-Stake. The full name of the model is Stake determined Proof of Work, but it is Staked Proof-of-Work [sPOW] for short.

History

One of the biggest security concerns of Proof-of-Work is that a miner can basically run a 51% attack on the network given sufficient mining resources. This has proven to be a hard attack to pull off, but it is a potentiality.

Proof-of-Stake based networks have a big vulnerability. A party, given enough monetary resources, can take over any such network by staking far more than any other participant in the network to control it (51% attack).

Staked Proof-of-Work

We know that in any open system, power moves to those with the greatest resources. Those with greater resources tend to take control of any open system and it can hardly be stopped; only reduced as much as possible.

Staked Proof-of-work takes a step further to prevent 51% attacks in the network, by limiting the allowed Proof-of-Work to the size of the stake, which is also limited by the total supply of the currency of the network.

Description

A stake is required to mine on the network and, the more the stake, the more the allowed mining capacity. There are two main active parts to the consensus, the Mining, and the Staking. It also works in reverse, that a stake needs to have mining power to actually get rewards. The more the mining power, the more stake capacity is required.

A miner with the ability to mine at the rate of 100 MegaHashes/seconds, will need to make an equivalent stake to the network to be able to utilize all the owned hashpower. Likewise, a user with 100,000 of the network’s native currency would need to run the mining process equivalent to the stake to achieve maximum reward.

The consensus also provides for Miners with no stake as well as Stakers with no Mining power, by allowing Leasing of stake to Miners by Stakers and pooling of a miner’s mining power to a miner with greater stake.

The consensus both raises the resistance to 51% attack (by increasing the amount of work needed to be done to achieve such an attack) as well as provide incentivization for all participants of the network. It also passively reduces the ultimate power of both the miners and the stakers.

Upcoming

Forthcoming, is a more technical description of the consensus model, which will be posted soon. Do not hesitate to post comments or ask any questions.

You can also reach me on:

Reddit: @adibas03

Gitter: @adibas03

Twitter: @adibas03

Email: anthony@chronologic.network