Toward a Green Blockchain: Engineering Merkle Tree and Proof of Work for Energy Optimization

【Author】 Escobar, Cesar Castellon; Roy, Swapnoneel; Kreidl, O. Patrick; Dutta, Ayan; Boloni, Ladislau

【Source】IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON NETWORK AND SERVICE MANAGEMENT

【影响因子】4.758

【Abstract】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. [Escobar, Cesar Castellon; Roy, Swapnoneel; Dutta, Ayan] Univ North Florida, Sch Comp, Jacksonville, FL 32224 USA; [Kreidl, O. Patrick] Univ North Florida, Sch Engn, Jacksonville, FL 32224 USA; [Boloni, Ladislau] Univ Cent Florida, Dept Comp Sci, Orlando, FL 32816 USA State University System of Florida; University of North Florida; State University System of Florida; University of North Florida; State University System of Florida; University of Central Florida Dutta, A (通讯作者)，Univ North Florida, Sch Comp, Jacksonville, FL 32224 USA. a.dutta@unf.edu NSF CPS [1932300, 1931767]; Fidelity National Financial Distinguished Professorship in CIS [0583-5504-51]; Cyber Florida [220408]; Division Of Computer and Network Systems; Direct For Computer & Info Scie & Enginr [1931767, 1932300] Funding Source: National Science Foundation NSF CPS(National Science Foundation (NSF)NSF - Directorate for Engineering (ENG)); Fidelity National Financial Distinguished Professorship in CIS; Cyber Florida; Division Of Computer and Network Systems; Direct For Computer & Info Scie & Enginr(National Science Foundation (NSF)NSF - Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE)) This research study is supported in part by NSF CPS #1932300 and #1931767, Fidelity National Financial Distinguished Professorship in CIS #0583-5504-51, and Cyber Florida #220408 grants. 64 0 0 0 0 IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC PISCATAWAY 445 HOES LANE, PISCATAWAY, NJ 08855-4141 USA 1932-4537 IEEE T NETW SERV MAN IEEE Trans. Netw. Serv. Manag. DEC 2022 19 4 3847 3857 10.1109/TNSM.2022.3219494 http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TNSM.2022.3219494 11 Computer Science, Information Systems Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) Computer Science 8V3TC 2023-05-06 WOS:000930555700013

【Keywords】Blockchains; Energy consumption; Proof of Work; Security; Optimization; Energy measurement; Consensus protocol; Blockchain; Merkle tree; proof of work; energy optimization

【发表时间】2022 DEC

【收录时间】2023-05-14

【文献类型】实验仿真

【主题类别】

区块链技术-核心技术-扩展方案