Computational Hardware for Blockchain Network Acceleration

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Eight years ago a new communication protocol was created that allowed for the secure and trustworthyexchange of money between unknown parties without the need for a central authority; this was the firstrealization of a "trust network" and the culmination of many attempts to achieve de-centralized trust systems.This particular effort implemented the Bitcoin network, but its potential goes far beyond the exchange ofmonetary currency. In general, proponents of this technology, the so-called blockchain network, cite its abilityto support the trustworthy exchange of agreements and tasks between individuals and organizations. Withoutthe need for a trusted third-party to mediate such exchanges, and hence monopolize information control,participants are much more likely to benefit in proportion to the value of their contribution rather than theirsize. Recent protocol developments have added much more functionality to blockchain networks, allowingthem to support many more activities of key benefit to Canada's welfare and economy including the realizationof sophisticated contracts, data security and privacy, data storage, etc.The logic and functionality of blockchain networks employ a number of key computational features (e.g.encryption, verification, proofs, etc.) to realize their overall operation. To help promote the widespreaddeployment of this technology the computation of these features should be completed quickly on commoditycompute hardware. Therefore, the goal of this project is to port certain blockchain computations to specializedplatforms - graphics processing units and field-programmable-gate arrays - which themselves are becomingcommoditized but which are non-trivial to program. The successful achievement of this project will helpimprove the responsiveness and utility of the network to both individuals and to large organizationsimplementing custom blockchain systems.