Towards a low carbon proof-of-work blockchain

arXiv:2404.04729v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Proof of Work (PoW) blockchains burn a lot of energy. Proof-of-work algorithms are expensive by design and often only serve to compute blockchains. In some sense, carbon-based and non-carbon based regional electric power is fungible. So the total carbon and non-carbon electric power mix plays a role. Thus, generally PoW algorithms have large CO$_2$ footprints solely for computing blockchains. A proof of technology is described towards replacing hashcash or other PoW methods with a lottery …

algorithms arxiv blockchain blockchains carbon compute cs.cr design electric energy lot low non pow power proof proof of work regional role work