Applying VNS in Blockchain Proof-of-Useful-Work Consensus Protocols

Abstract

BlockChain (BC) is one of the innovations that became central to our lives as it is ubiquitous with a very wide range of applications. It could be seen as a collection of records, linked with each other, strongly resistant to alteration, protected using cryptography, and maintained autonomously. All these benefits come with a cost, in BC expressed by a very high use of energy needed to execute consensus protocols. Additionally, main issues in maintaining BC are security, privacy, and consistency. Majority of these issues, related also to consensus protocols, can be partially resolved using a concept known as Proof-of-Useful-Work (PoUW) that assumes solving instances of the real-life combinatorial optimization (CO) problems. Therefore, VNS, one of the most popular optimization methods, could be utilized to efficiently solve the real-life instances of CO problems and thus provide additional useful work for the same amount of energy used. In this talk, we present contributions of VNS to PoUW consensus protocols using illustrative examples, we describe its practical impacts and savings in power consumption, and discuss in detail how it was applied.