Depending on the energy source, researchers estimate that crypto-mining can produce 3-15 million tons of global carbon emissions. Right from the manufacturing of mining equipment to cooling facilities and the handling of e-waste in addition to the energy consumed by the mining equipment to secure the network, it can be quite a wasteful process, however I do know that PoW has proved tobe an effective method to secure a network, as long as 51% of the whole network is not controlled by a central authority.

However, I cam across Virtual ASICs by Concordium is a very interesting concept that has been scientifically proven by academic research. I think it might be worth looking at. Virtual ASICs are essentially a virtualized version of proof-of-work.

Miners can buy on-chain virtual mining machines which can be powered by virtual electricity. Similar to their physical counterparts, each powered virtual ASIC has a certain chance to win the right to create the next block. In the boundary case where virtual electricity is free, the protocol corresponds to proof-of-stake using an ASIC token which is separate from the currency itself (the amount of stake equals your virtual computing power).

In the other boundary case where virtual computers are free, we get a proof-of-burn equivalent. That is, a consensus mechanism in which miners ‘burn’ money to obtain lottery tickets for the right to create the next block.

The authors ( “ Virtual ASICs: Generalized Proof-of-Stake Mining in Cryptocurrencies “) of provide the cryptographic machinery required to base a consensus protocol on Virtual ASICs, as well as to sell them in sealed-bid auctions on-chain. They ensure that as long as a majority of the miners in the system mine honestly, bids remain both private and binding, and that miners cannot censor the bids of their competitors. To achieve this, the authors introduce a novel all-or-nothing broadcast functionality in blockchains that is of independent interest.

I think this is an energy efficient and cryptographically secure method that might help us save the environment and at the same time not compromise on network security. What do you think about this?

The global internet of Things (IoT) in the energy market will generate a revenue of $41.2 billion by 2027 as per a report by Research Dive.
 

The report also added that the significance of artificial intelligence(AI) in IoT in energy is boosting the global internet of things in energy market growth. With the rise in demand for IoT devices everywhere and also the global internet penetration expected to increase. Security will be a major concern. Blockchain is the only way such security concerns can be effectively put to rest.
 

But use of blockchains at such a large scale would mean choosing robust blockchains who can handle such environments.
 

This is exactly why new generation blockchains like Concordium are working and researching on providing the promise of blockchain for business.

With regulatory compliance by design, privacy and verification of users identity, identity management will become easy for IOT devices to interact with humans. Billions of devices would also mean the network needs to have fast transaction capabilities and high throughput at a global scale with Concordium is building.


Fast finality and easy to deploy smart contracts will give blockchains like Concordium an edge that will help bridge the needs of the IoT industry and the Blockchain Industry.

As years fly by technology will become more accessible to the masses as it gets cheaper. That also means an ubiquitous internet where billions of devices need to autonomously interact with each other.

There will be multiple devices that need to pay for various services and authentication, for all transactions to be hack proof the only solution seems to be a blockchain in pace so all transactions are safe and cryptographically secure.

We will live in a connected world.

There was a Blockchain Research Center at Aarhus University that was opened up on 1st February 2019. The center has been researching into blockchain technology, with focus on security, transparency and general usability.

According to Professor Jesper Buus Nielsen, who is heading the Concordium Blockchain Research Center at Aarhus University ( COBRA ) their goal is to gather experience from previous generations of blockchains, compare that with the research they have conducted there at the department over the decade, and on the basis of that comparison forge new knowledge about the technology.

Blockchain technology is considered as one of the most important technological discoveries in recent times. The technology is expected to revolutionize foreign exchange systems, strengthen copyrights and digitalize electoral systems. So far, however, the technology has had a slightly tarnished reputation due to problems with security, transparency and usability, among other things. A new research center at the Department of Computer Science at Aarhus University will now try to solve these problems.

The center will be a strong part of Aarhus University's comprehensive digitalization initiatives and, together with the Centre for Digitalization, Big Data and Data Analytics (DIGIT), which they established in 2017, it will give Danish IT research and education an important boost says the dean at Science and Technology, Niels Christian Nielsen.

In Aarhus they are world champions in cryptography. It is no coincidence that the research center is located at Aarhus University. The researchers at the Department of Computer Science are some of the best in the world within research areas of cryptography and verification, which are central to developing the blockchain technology.

"With an investment of this scale in Aarhus University's world-class computer scientists, Denmark is at the forefront of digitization providing companies and researchers a solid foundation for taking full advantage of the opportunities new technologies present," says Anders Samuelsen, Denmark's Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Funded by the Concordium Foundation :

The research center is being funded by the Concordium Foundation, established non-profit foundation, that is developing the Concordium Blockchain Network: a new-generation blockchain, with focus on user identification and transparency. The foundation is supporting the centre with just over DKK 10 million (EUR 1.3 million) a year over the first five years of the centre's lifetime.

"The Concordium Foundation has granted the Concordium Blockchain Research Center Aarhus DKK 50 million (EUR 6.7 million) over the next five years to fund non-targeted research into the technology. Our hope is that, in the long term, the research can help both the private sector and the public authorities to use blockchain technology securely and effectively for different types of transactions," says Lars Seier Christensen, chairman of the Concordium Foundation.

Concordium Blockchain Research Center Aarhus will be located at Department of Computer Science at Aarhus University with Professor Jesper Buus Nielsen as center leader. All results from the centers research will be made publicly available via open access. More information about the center can be found here.

I have been following some research work from Cobra for a few months now and I must say it is a class apart. Look forward to the mainnet launch of the final Blockchian.

We all know that in proof-of-work based cryptocurrencies, miners invest computing power to maintain a distributed ledger.

The drawback of such a consensus protocol is its immense energy consumption. Bitcoin, for example consumes as much energy as a small nation state and we are all aware of that.

To prevent this waste of energy various consensus mechanism such as proof-of-space or proof-of-stake have been proposed.

In proof-of-stake, block creators are selected based on the amounts of money they stake instead of their expanded computing power.

Virtual ASICs are essentially a virtualized version of proof-of-work. Miners can buy on-chain virtual mining machines which can be powered by virtual electricity.

Similar to their physical counterparts, each powered virtual ASIC has a certain chance to win the right to create the next block. In the boundary case where virtual electricity is free, the protocol corresponds to proof-of-stake using an ASIC token which is separate from the currency itself (the amount of stake equals your virtual computing power).

In the other boundary case where virtual computers are free, we get a proof-of-burn equivalent.

That is, a consensus mechanism in which miners ‘burn’ money to obtain lottery tickets for the right to create the next block.

The researchers at Concordium provide the cryptographic machinery required to base a consensus protocol on Virtual ASICs, as well as to sell them in sealed-bid auctions on-chain.

They ensure that as long as a majority of the miners in the system mine honestly, bids remain both private and binding, and that miners cannot censor the bids of their competitors.

To achieve this, the authors introduce a novel all-or-nothing broadcast functionality in blockchains that is of independent interest.

Here is a video where they explain this concept in detail : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR7IxjgXeQ4&feature=emb_logo

What do you think of Virtual ASIC and Proof of Work Mechanisms as compared to Proof of Work?

The core tenet of any proof-of-stake blockchain is ensuring that all participants have skin in the game. You can’t just show up empty-handed to this potluck!

By having participants put something down in order to have a seat at the table, PoS blockchain not only uses its distributed wealth to protect the network from attacks but also has better mechanisms for handling inflation cheaply.

Some Projects are trying the tried and tested DPos with Zero Knowledge proofs variants.

Delegated Proof-of Stake :

This system contains a fixed number of validators on the network who have to be voted by the network. However, rather than having a rowdy system where voters, across different landscapes and timezones, may possess an undue advantage, the community is represented by elected entities known as delegates.

Candidates vie to be nominated as a delegate through community votes. Using their token, the community votes for delegates and the candidates with the most votes wins. Once appointed, users can send their tokens to delegates who will stake for them on their behalf. Block rewards earned by the delegate are shared proportionally among stakers.

However, delegates may also get to charge service fees ranging from 1–20% of the block reward. If a delegate misbehaves, the community can vote them out and vote in another candidate just as quickly.

dPoS is the most widely adopted and fastest-growing PoS consensus algorithm due to its fast transaction ability, scalability, cheap transaction fees, and novel democratic system that encourages honesty and efficiency from delegates.

Ongoing research and development on this protocol have resulted in variants addressing custodianship and liveliness.
These are:
Liquid Proof-of-Stake and
Bonded Proof-of-Stake

Liquid Proof-of-Stake: Liquid Proof-of-Stake makes delegation optional, allowing users to transfer their right to vote to another user without having to send their tokens along. It also gives users the right to vote in changes to the protocol (not just who delegates) and will penalize validators trying to exploit the network.

Bonded Proof-of-Stake: bPoS spots the same features as Liquid Proof-of-stake with one caveat; the network will penalize the validator and the stake delegated to them for jeopardizing the network’s safety and/or liveliness.

The democratization of blockchain through dPoS (and its variants) is ushering a free and fair ecosystem where anybody can participate in a peerless and distributed consensus system where their participation not only counts but is also rewarded. This is one of the reasons why privacy preserving projects like Concordium have chosen to deploy a Delegated Proof-of-Stake Consensus to both use the features of this consensus but also because they are certain that this model fits the best the current and future enterprise needs when it comes to new and agile technologies.

They also implement Zero Knowledge variant to help preserve privacy. Its mainly being used to make sure the DPos system that has been implement is a fair one without being able to track the delegates and also for various other reasons.

Have we seen any such variants before? Seems like a lot of academic research behind this in the past 1.5 - 2 years.

Privacy-preserving protocols are the backbone of blockchain technology, a technology that has promised secure transactions and communication. What are the Privacy-preserving protocols available to blockchain-based technology?

Some projects are still in the research phase, some of them do not even have a token yet. Some of them yet to launch their mainnet, like Concordium its a very interesting project and well researched but could not find much details about the token. Lets make a concrete list of them.

Some of the of the projects I have heard of are :

1. Monero

2. ZCash

3. Concordium

4. Komodo

5. Grin

6. Beam

7. Priate Chain

8. Horizen

9. Particle

10. Tari

11. Verge

12. Ghost

Do you know any more? Did I leave any famous projects? What do you think will happen to our privacy in the coming years?