Genetic-Algorithm-Inspired Difficulty Adjustment for Proof-of-Work Blockchains

【Author】 Chin, Zi Hau; Yap, Timothy Tzen Vun; Tan, Ian Kim Teck

【Source】SYMMETRY-BASEL

【影响因子】2.940

【Abstract】In blockchains, the principle of proof-of-work (PoW) is used to compute a complex mathematical problem. The computation complexity is governed by the difficulty, adjusted periodically to control the rate at which new blocks are created. The network hash rate determines this, a phenomenon of symmetry, as the difficulty also increases when the hash rate increases. If the hash rate grows or declines exponentially, the block creation interval cannot be maintained. A genetic algorithm (GA) is proposed as an additional mechanism to the existing difficulty adjustment algorithm for optimizing the blockchain parameters. The study was conducted with four scenarios in mind, including a default scenario that simulates a regular blockchain. All the scenarios with the GA were able to achieve a lower standard deviation of the average block time and difficulty compared to the default blockchain network without GA. The scenario of a fixed difficulty adjustment interval with GA was able to reduce the standard deviation of the average block time by 80.1%, from 497.1 to 98.9, and achieved a moderate median block propagation time of 6.81 s and a stale block rate of 6.67%.

【Keywords】blockchain; difficulty adjustment; genetic algorithm; proof-of-work

【发表时间】2022 MAR

【收录时间】2022-04-05

【文献类型】期刊

【主题类别】

区块链技术-共识机制-