RDV: An Alternative To Proof-of-Work And A Real Decentralized Consensus For Blockchain

TL;DR

This paper proposes RDV, an energy-efficient, decentralized consensus mechanism for blockchain based on distributed voting, addressing PoW's high energy consumption and latency issues, suitable for IoT devices.

Contribution

Introduces RDV, a novel blockchain consensus method using voting instead of mining, enhancing decentralization and energy efficiency.

Findings

RDV reduces energy consumption compared to PoW.

RDV achieves reliable consensus without mining.

Suitable for low-power IoT devices.

Abstract

A blockchain is a decentralized ledger where all transactions are recorded. For having a reliable blockchain and double-spending prevention, we need a decentralized consensus and agreement on a blockchain. Bitcoin uses proof-of-work (PoW). It is a cryptographic puzzle that is difficult to solve but easy to verify. However, because of significant latency of proof-of-work for transactions confirmation, this consensus mechanism is vulnerable against double-spending. On the other hand, PoW consumes a significant amount of energy that by growing the network, it becomes a major problematic of this consensus mechanism. In this paper, we introduce an alternative to PoW, because of all its major problems and security issues that may lead to collapsing decentralization of the blockchain, while a full decentralized system is the main purpose of using blockchain technology. The approach we introduce is based on a distributed voting process and called "RDV: Register, Deposit, Vote". Since in RDV algorithm, there is no mining process, so it is appropriate for low-level energy devices and Internet of Things (IoT).