A new blockchain proposal supporting multi-stage proof-of-work

We introduce a new variant of decentralised, trustless, permissionless blockchain. The main novelty is that the proof-of-work for mining a block is divided into multiple stages. An appropriate linkage structure is defined so that it becomes possible to simultaneously work on various stages of different blocks. The overall effect is an improvement in the transaction processing rate and the time for confirming a transaction. These are achieved without compromising on security. The division of the proof-of-work into several stages also divides the block reward into an equal number of stage rewards. Once a block gets onto the blockchain, the miner which successfully completed a particular stage can claim the reward for that stage. This ensures a more equitable distribution of the reward for successfully mining a block.

Keywords

blockchain, proof-of-work, pipelining, mining, Bitcoin

Full Text (PDF format)

Received 1 August 2022

Accepted 22 August 2022

Published 13 October 2022