Computational Hardware for Blockchain Network Acceleration

八年前，一种新的通信协议被创建，它允许未知方之间安全可靠地交换货币，而不需要中央权威机构；这是第一次实现“信任网络”，也是实现去中心化信任系统的多次尝试的高潮。这一特别努力实现了比特币网络，但其潜力远远超出货币兑换的范围。一般来说，这项技术的支持者，即所谓的区块链网络，认为它有能力支持个人和组织之间可信的协议和任务交换。由于不需要受信任的第三方来调解这类交易，从而垄断信息控制，参与者更有可能按其贡献的价值而不是其规模受益。最近的协议发展为区块链网络增加了更多的功能，使它们能够支持更多对加拿大的福利和经济具有关键好处的活动，包括实现复杂的合同、数据安全和隐私、数据存储等。区块链网络的逻辑和功能使用了许多关键的计算功能(例如加密、验证、证明等)。实现他们的整体运作。为了促进这项技术的广泛应用，这些特征的计算应该在商用计算机硬件上快速完成。因此，该项目的目标是将某些区块链计算移植到专门的平台--图形处理单元和现场可编程门阵列--这些平台本身正在变得商品化，但编程起来并不容易。该项目的成功实现将有助于提高网络对个人和大型组织的响应速度和效用，这些组织正在实施定制的区块链系统。

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.