52 - Durable, Low Energy Bitcoin PoW
BIP: 52 source Layer: Consensus (hard fork) Title: Durable, Low Energy Bitcoin PoW Authors: Michael Dubrovsky Bogdan Penkovsky Status: Draft Type: Specification Assigned: 2021-05-13 License: BSD-2-Clause OR OPUBL-1.0 Table of ContentsSimple SummaryAbstractCopyrightMotivationSpecificationHeavyHashRandom matrix generationDiscussionGeographic Distribution of Mining Relative to CAPEX-OPEX Ratio of Mining CostsWhy does CAPEX to OPEX shift lead to lower energy consumption?Working Principles of Photonic ProcessorsBlock Reward ConsiderationsImplementation on the Bitcoin NetworkReverse compatibilityASICBOOSTEndnotesAcknowledgments Simple Summary Bitcoin's energy consumption is growing with its value (see Figure below). Although scaling PoW is necessary to maintain the security of the network, reliance on massive energy consumption has scaling drawbacks and leads to mining centralization. A major consequence of the central role of local electricity cost in mining is ...