Sustainability in mining protocols for public blockchains

Abstract

Blockchains are a somewhat new technology with much potential and it is meeting growing public interest. However, with wider use of the technology we face the challenge of sustainability since the current mining protocols use a considerable amount of electricity in the process of creating new blocks. In practice some blockchains require specialized hardware designed for the sole purpose of mining blocks. Several new mining protocols are proposed to deal with this issue. This thesis will start by studying the current mining protocols of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Next, we discuss the different proposals for new protocols with regards to which are most suited for wider, long term use.