Paper #5

Evaluation of Green Alternatives for Blockchain Proof-of-Work (PoW) Approach

Mahdi H. Miraz, Peter S. Excell and Khan Sobayel

Abstract: Following the footprints of Bitcoins, many other cryptocurrencies were developed mostly adopting the same or similar Proof-of-Work (PoW) approach. Since completing the PoW puzzle requires extremely high computing power, consuming a vast amount of electricity, PoW has been strongly criticised for its antithetic stand against the notion of green computing. Use of application-specific hardware, particularly application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) has further fuelled the debate, as these devices are of no use once they become “legacy” and hence obsolete to compete in the mining race, thus contributing to electronics waste. Therefore, this paper surveys the currently available alternative approaches to PoW and evaluates their applicability - especially their appropriateness in terms of greenness.

Keywords: Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC); Blockchain; Blockchain mining; Carbon footprint; Green computing; Greenhouse gas emission (GHGE); Information and communication technology (ICT); Proof-of-Stake (PoS); Proof-of-Work (PoW).