Toward a Green Blockchain: Engineering Merkle Tree and Proof of Work for Energy Optimization
Toward a Green Blockchain: Engineering Merkle Tree and Proof of Work for Energy Optimization
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DOI：
10.1109/tnsm.2022.3219494
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发表时间：
2022-12
影响因子：
5.3
通讯作者：
Cesar Castellon Escobar;Swapnoneel Roy;O. P. Kreidl;Ayan Dutta;Ladislau Bölöni
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Cesar Castellon Escobar;Swapnoneel Roy;O. P. Kreidl;Ayan Dutta;Ladislau Bölöni
部署在不同工业应用中的区块链驱动的智能系统有望提高运营效率和产量，同时显著降低网络安全风险。然而，在实现时出现了可用性和安全性之间的权衡，这是由额外的资源（例如，存储器和计算）。本文将能量减少算法工程技术应用于Merkle Tree（MT）根计算和工作量证明（PoW）算法，这是区块链计算的两个主要元素，作为一种保持承诺的安全利益的手段，但对系统可用性的影响较小。使用pyRAPL，一个Python库来测量计算的能耗，我们实验了两种算法的标准和节能实现，用于不同的输入大小。我们的研究结果表明，在区块链的MT构建模块中，可以减少高达98%的能耗，并且随着输入规模的增加，这种优势通常会增加。对于PoW算法，我们的研究结果显示，能耗降低了20%，难度越高，效益越低。所提出的节能技术也适用于区块链计算的其他关键元素，可能提供比迄今为止仅在MT和PoW算法上获得的结果所暗示的更“绿色”的区块链驱动系统。
Blockchain-powered smart systems deployed in different industrial applications promise operational efficiencies and improved yields, while significantly mitigating cybersecurity risks. Tradeoffs between availability and security arise at implementation, however, triggered by the additional resources (e.g., memory and computation) required by blockchain-enabled hosts. This paper applies an energy-reducing algorithmic engineering technique for Merkle Tree (MT) root calculations and the Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm, two principal elements of blockchain computations, as a means to preserve the promised security benefits but with less compromise to system availability. Using pyRAPL, a python library to measure the energy consumption of a computation, we experiment with both the standard and energy-reduced implementations of both algorithms for different input sizes. Our results show that up to 98% reduction in energy consumption is possible within the blockchain’s MT construction module, with the benefits typically increasing with larger input sizes. For the PoW algorithm, our results show up to 20% reduction in energy consumption, with the benefits being lower for higher difficulty levels. The proposed energy-reducing technique is also applicable to other key elements of blockchain computations, potentially affording even “greener” blockchain-powered systems than implied by only the results obtained thus far on the MT and PoW algorithms.