Everything About ___
Live briefing

Everything about Proof of work

System that regulates the formation of blocks on a blockchain

Proof of work is a form of cryptographic proof in which one party proves to others that a certain amount of a specific computational effort has been expended. Verifiers can subsequently confirm this expenditure with minimal effort on their part. The concept was first proposed by Moni Naor and Cynthia Dwork in 1993 as a way to deter denial-of-service attacks and other service abuses such as spam on a network by requiring some work from a service requester, usually meaning processing time by a computer. Extending the work of Cynthia Dwork and Moni Naor, Adam Back formally described a proof of work system called Hashcash as a protection against email spam in 1997. The term "proof of work" was coined and formalized in a 1999 paper by Markus Jakobsson and Ari Juels. The concept was adapted to digital tokens by Hal Finney in 2004 through the idea of "reusable proof of work" using the 160-bit secure hash algorithm 1 (SHA-1). Wikipedia →

🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path

  1. Read the overview: Proof of workA 5-minute orientation
  2. Skim a recent paper: The environmental impact of cryptocurrencies using proof of work and proof of stake consensus algorithms: A systematic reviewInfluential work since 2022
  3. Pick up a classic book: DublinersThe most-reprinted book on the subject
  4. Read the landmark paper: Minimal work principle: Proof and counterexamplesCited 81 times
  5. Go sideways: Bitcoin protocolA closely related topic
  6. Go sideways: HashcashA closely related topic

📖 Definitions

Noun A form of cryptographic proof in which a prover proves to verifiers that a certain amount of a specific computational effort has been expended.

Noun Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see proof,‎ of,‎ work.

🗂️ The subject at a glance

  1. Background
  2. Evolution of proof-of-work algorithms
  3. Variants
  4. List of proof-of-work functions
  5. Proof of useful work (PoUW)
  6. Optimisable Proof of Work (OPoW)
  7. Bitcoin-type proof of work
  8. Environmental concerns

🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)

🆕 Influential since 2022

📚 Books worth reading

Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.

🔗 Related topics