Paper #2

A Survey on PoW-based Consensus

Alessio Meneghetti, Massimiliano Sala and Daniele Taufer

Abstract: We provide a historical overview of proof-of-work techniques and the fields in which it plunges its roots. We are interested in PoW-techniques applied to blockchain technology and therefore we survey the state-of-the-art protocols employing these methods for consensus algorithms, emphasizing the differences between the efficient hashcash systems and the promising bread pudding protocols. Afterwards, the consensus mechanisms are discussed and some interesting known attacks to these algorithms are collected and classified according to their underlying ideas.

Keywords: Proof of Work (PoW); Blockchain; Distributed Digital Ledger; Hashcash; Bread Pudding Protocols; Consensus algorithms.