{"id":52407,"date":"2023-06-01T20:14:33","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T20:14:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/?p=52407"},"modified":"2023-06-01T20:14:33","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T20:14:33","slug":"scientists-propose-quantum-proof-of-work-consensus-for-blockchain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/?p=52407","title":{"rendered":"Scientists propose quantum proof-of-work consensus for blockchain"},"content":{"rendered":"


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A team of researchers from universities in Australia and the United States, working in collaboration with quantum technology company BTQ, recently published research proposing a novel proof-of-work (PoW) scheme for blockchain consensus that relies on quantum computing techniques to validate consensus.<\/p>\n

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Our new paper on using NISQ-era quantum sampling problems in proof-of-work blockchain consensus algorithms. In collaboration with @BTQ_Tech<\/a>.https:\/\/t.co\/MKAB2czqSk<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Peter Rohde (@drpeterrohde) June 1, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dubbed \u201cProof-of-work consensus by quantum sampling,\u201d the preprint research paper details<\/a> a system that the authors claim \u201cprovides dramatic speedup and energy savings relative to computation by classical hardware.”<\/p>\n

According to the researchers, current algorithms for solving PoW consensus puzzles are slow and require a significant amount of computation resources to process:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhereas classical PoW schemes such as Bitcoin\u2019s are notoriously energy inefficient, our boson sampling-based PoW scheme offers a far more energy efficient alternative when implemented on quantum hardware.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to the paper, the quantum advantage provided by this scheme would also increase the difficulty of mining, thus making it possible to \u201cmaintain consistent\u00a0block mining time\u201d as the number of miners increases, further incentivizing continuing participation of \u201cquantum miners.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sampling process the researchers refer to, boson sampling, isn\u2019t a new one, but its application to blockchain technology appears novel. Boson sampling has shown<\/a> promise in numerous quantum computing applications. Still, as a non-universal quantum computing solution (it has to be used in a system built for a specific task), its potential has been limited to a select few domains, such as chemistry.<\/p>\n

Related: <\/em>How does quantum computing impact the finance industry?<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

However, according to the researchers, it may be the perfect solution for future-proofing blockchain applications and, potentially, lowering the environmental impact of mining on the Bitcoin blockchain and similar chains.<\/p>\n

Aside from quantum advantage,\u00a0quantum hardware also has a leg up on old school computers due to the nature of how blockchain mining works. <\/p>\n

One of the current advantages of classical supercomputers over their new quantum cousins is the ability to \u201cprecompute\u201d when handling the same class of problem regularly. But, when it comes to blockchain, such precompute is essentially wasted. <\/p>\n

Mining is, as the researchers put it, a problem that is \u201cprogress-free.\u201d No matter how many times a blockchain puzzle is solved to provide proof-of-work, the computer and algorithms processing the challenges don\u2019t ever get any better at solving the problem. <\/p>\n

This means that quantum computers, despite being notoriously challenging to develop and expensive to build and maintain, would ultimately be capable of validating consensus more efficiently than state-of-the-art classical systems.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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A team of researchers from universities in Australia and the United States, working in collaboration with quantum technology company BTQ, recently published research proposing a novel proof-of-work (PoW) scheme for blockchain consensus that relies on quantum computing techniques to validate consensus. Our new paper on using NISQ-era quantum sampling problems in proof-of-work blockchain consensus algorithms. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[38],"tags":[73,933,476,1055,107,3544],"class_list":["post-52407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blockchain","tag-blockchain","tag-consensus","tag-proofofwork","tag-propose","tag-quantum","tag-scientists"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/6850402b-2efa-4e50-889c-173d8438f018.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52407"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52409,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52407\/revisions\/52409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}