Proofs of work and bread pudding protocols
US7356696B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignees
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Aug 1, 2000 |
| Grant date | Apr 8, 2008 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Dec 2, 2022 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L9/3218
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
The bread pudding protocol of the present invention represents a novel use of proofs of work and is based upon the same principle as the dish from which it takes its name, namely, that of reuse to minimize waste. Whereas the traditional bread pudding recipe recycles stale bread, our bread pudding protocol recycles the “stale” computations in a POW to perform a separate and useful task, while also maintaining privacy in the task. In one advantageous embodiment of our bread pudding protocol, we consider the computationally intensive operation of minting coins in the MicroMint scheme of Rivest and Shamir and demonstrate how the minting operation can be partitioned into a collection of POWs, which are then used to shift the burden of the minting operation onto a large group of untrusted computational devices. Thus, the computational effort invested in the POWs is recycled to accomplish the minting operation.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.