SteemitCryptoAcademy Week 13 Homework Post || Consensus Algorithms || For Professor @alphafx || Posted By @preshdan

This week Professor @Alphafx is looking at Consensus Algorithms.

The homework task involves writing about one of these Consensus Algorithms - Stellar Consensus Protocol, Proof of Capacity, Proof of Burn or Proof of Elapsed Time.

Assignment
Write on any of these consensus algorithms extensively

• Stellar Consensus Protocol
• Proof of Capacity
• Proof of Burn
• Proof of Elapsed Time

I will be discussing on "Proof of Capacity"

Before I proceed, let's take a little look at Consensus Algorithms.

Blockchain is well known to be a distributed decentralized network that makes privacy,security, immutability, and transparency attainable. No central authority is present to check the validity of transactions and verify them, despite that every transaction in the Blockchain is observed to be utterly secured and verified. This is feasibly exclusive due of the presence of the consensus protocol that is a very imperative part of any Blockchain network.

A consensus algorithm is a particular method through which every peer of a Blockchain network attain a mutual treaty about the current condition of the distributed ledger. The consensus algorithms in this way, obtain reliability in the Blockchain network and initiate trust between anonymous peers contained by a distributed computing environment. Characteristically, the consensus protocol ensures that every added new block in the Blockchain is second to none in view of the version of the truth agreed upon by every nodes in the Blockchain.

Blockchain consensus protocol is composed of some definite objectives like coming to congeniality or treaty, co-operation, collaboration, unvarying rights to each node, as well as obligatory active involvement of every node in the consensus process. Consequently, a consensus algorithm ettle at discovering a mutual treaty that is a win for the entire network.

Now, let's discuss the consensus algorithm: "Proof of Capacity".

Proof of Capacity (PoC) is one of the consensus algorithm in which miners “plot” their hard drives in order to participate in the verification of transaction. This means that, the miners will reckon or calculate and store the answers to the mining problems prior to the mining itself.

Answers that are obtained faster than others are the very ones that are picked in the consensus round. The blockbis awarded to these minners and ffor this reason the coins applicable to that.

These solutions being too complicated to solve in real time have to be reckoned prior. Furthermore, the block has a really time at an average of 4 minutes per block (compared to Bitcoin’s 10 minutes). This is the reason solutions to the hashing algorithm must be saved in advance.

The method or manner that a miner is able to raise his/her opportunities of winning the block reward is by ensuring that they have the most plots or solutions saved on their hard drives ahead of time. This will raise the probability that your solution is the fastest.

Proof of capacity (PoC) is a consensus mechanical means for the conversion used by algorithm in blockchains that allows mining devices in the network using their readily obtainable hard drive space to determine mining rights and prove the validity of transactions. This is distinguished from the use of the mining device’s computational power (like the proof of work algorithm) or the stake if the muner in the cryptocurrencies (as in the proof of stake algorithm).

• The authentication systems of Proof of capacity (PoC) puts to use spare space on a device's hard drive to store answers to a cryptocurrency hashing problem.

• Compared to proof-of-work (PoW) and proof-of-stake (PoS) systems, the prime benefit of a PoC system is its efficiency .

• Some of the Blockchains that run on proof of capacity include Storj, SpaceMint, Chia, and Burst

Understanding Proof of Capacity

Proof of capacity came forth as one of the numerous alternative answer to the question or problem of high energy consumption within the proof of work (PoW) systems and hoarding of cryptocurrency in proof of stake (PoS) systems.

The value of solution one can store on the hard drive is directly proportional to size or capacity of the hard drive, also the greater the chances a miner has to pair the required hash value from his/her list, results in greater chances to win the mining reward.

How Does Proof of Capacity Work

Proof of Capacity (PoC) is made up of two components: plotting and mining. Plotting happens to be the first stage and involves creating unique plot files.

Plotting uses a hashing function called "Shabal". This hashing algorithm is much difficult to compute than that of the SHA 256 variant that is used in the Bitcoin protocol. Consequently, the miners will reckon or calculate the solutions to the Shabal algorithm beforehand and store them on the hard drive.

• Plotting the Hard Drive

When plotting hard drive or creating the plot files, nonces are produced. This is slenderly distinct from the Bitcoin nonce because it is generated from the plot file. One needs to continuously hash data including a particular ID until the nonce is solved.

An individual nonce will contain 8,192 hashes and these hashes are wrapped together into a quantity of pairs regarded as “scoops”. There will be a total of 4,095 scoops that will individually be assigned that unique number. Below is a graphical example of the scoops.

An example of Nonce and Scoops

• Mining on the Hard Drive

The scoop number will be one of the results of the calculation. This scoop number will range from 0 to 4,095. A unit of time called the “deadline” is calculated using the resulting scoop number and the corresponding nonce.

When this will be completed for all of the nonces that are on the hard drive, the shortest deadline will then be selected. The minimum deadline is the total or amount of time spent to create a new block from the time last block was created.

If the deadline that a miner is able to produce is shorter than those of the other, then the miner is permitted to create a new block and will be entitled to the block reward.

Benefits of Proof of Capacity

Proof of Capacity consensus algorithms have a number of advantages, considering the many challenges faced by more traditional mining algorithms like PoW and PoS.

• Mining with a hard drive is conspicuously more energy efficient than making use of specialised equipments like an ASIC or regular GPUs. This will mitigate the interest of many environmentalists.

• Miners that had highly invested in specialised mining rigs and ASIC chips wouldn't have an edge in mining the coins. This often is one of the disadvantages of the Bitcoin protocol.

• With Proof of Capacity, there is a greater extent of diversification. This is as a result of the low impediment to entry of gaining possession of a hard drive. They are normally quite cheap and permits more miners to leap into the fray.

• The hard drive reusable as normal pieces of equipment once mining done with. In the sense that they are not so specialised, once mining is over, data can be deleted and they are just as good as new. This is not applicable with ASICs

• There is very minimal optimisation benefits of newer hard drives (apart from size). Therefore, the most recent equipment is not a prerequisite for getting an advantage on the mining of the coins.

Pros and Cons of Proof of Capacity

There are no doubt a number of pros and cons that exist with Proof of Capacity. These include the following:

Pros

• PoC can make use of any normal or regular hard drives including those of them with Android-based systems.

• It is described to be up to 30-times more efficient in terms of energy than the ASIC-based mining of the bitcoin cryptocurrency.

• Constant upgrading of hard drives or dedicated hardware is not needed.

• Drive can be reused for any other for the purpose of any other data storage as mining data can be easily wiped-off.

Cons

• Beyond the mining coins, the data plotted on the hard drive is useless. In other words, there is a great portion of space that is left superfluous.

• Notwithstanding that there are lower impediments to entry with Proof of Capacity mining, larger hard drives can still be bought.
  Individuals are not prevented by anything from purchasing much larger hard drives making use of them to mine most of the coins. This could influence on the network decentralisation.

• The mining is predisposed to exploitation by hackers if it becomes popular. At present, mining malware has increase in number exponentially to many computers around the world. These sometimes can be identified as PoW mining slows down the PC. Nevertheless, with Proof of Capacity it is much difficult to tell whether or not your spare hardware space is being used for illegal purposes.

Conclusion

Without doubt, Proof of Capacity is one of the more fascinating mining algorithms. It does not only think again on the approach towards mining for the past few years, it is also a solution seen by many as ecologically sustainable.

It also allows itself to be used by well to the panacea of most crytpocurrency counsel: an adequately decentralised ecosystem.

It is still a recently made concept and hasn't been used on the same scale that other algorithms have been used. It is yet to be proven whether Proof of Capacity can prevail over a number of the scaling impediment that more established blockhains like Ethereum and Bitcoin are facing.

Nonetheless, all innovatory technology begins as a simple use case and is further improved as impediments are presented. It will be fascinating to see how much Proof of Capacity can influence the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

This is my entry Professor @alphafx
Thanks for reading through

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