PUPoW: A framework for designing blockchains with practically-useful-proof-of-work & vanitycoin
Yash Chaurasia, Visvesh Subramanian, Sujit Gujar

TL;DR
This paper introduces PUPoW, a formal framework that enhances proof-of-work blockchains by enabling useful computations like vanity address generation, decentralizing problem setting, and addressing privacy concerns, thus making PoW more practical and sustainable.
Contribution
The paper proposes PUPoW, a novel framework that decentralizes problem setting, incorporates useful computations into PoW, and addresses privacy issues in vanity address generation.
Findings
PUPoW allows crowdsourcing of useful work in blockchain.
It decentralizes the role of problem setters, called puzzlers.
It demonstrates practical applications like VanityCoin for vanity address generation.
Abstract
Bitcoin is the first of its kind, a truly decentralized and anonymous cryptocurrency. To realize it, it has developed blockchain technology using the concept of `Proof of Work' (PoW). The miners, nodes responsible for writing transaction databases, solve a cryptographic puzzle to claim the right to write to the database. Though bitcoin and many other relevant cryptocurrencies, such as ether use revolutionary ideas, the main criticism involves computing resources and energy consumption to solve puzzles that have otherwise no use. There are attempts to use the PoW to do something useful, commonly referred to as Proof-of-Useful-Work (PoUW). In this paper, we attempt to (i) make PoUW more usable -- describe how a central problem setter can crowdsource their work as PoUW and (ii) in the true spirit of blockchains, decentralize the role of problem setter, whom we call puzzlers. We propose a…
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Taxonomy
TopicsBlockchain Technology Applications and Security · Cryptography and Data Security · Internet Traffic Analysis and Secure E-voting
