A blockchain consensus mechanism in which miners compete to solve computational puzzles to add new blocks and secure the network.
Proof of work was popularized by Bitcoin. Miners repeatedly hash block data with different random values until they find a result below a target set by the network. Finding this answer takes enormous trial and error, but checking it is easy for everyone else. The winning miner adds the block and receives a reward.
This design makes rewriting history extremely costly, because an attacker would need to redo the work faster than the rest of the network combined, which is why a 51 percent attack is considered the main theoretical threat. The main criticism of proof of work is its large electricity consumption and the specialized hardware it requires. Supporters argue the energy cost is what provides security.
The first decentralized cryptocurrency, launched in 2009, which uses a public blockchain and proof of work to record transactions.
HashingTransforming data of any size into a fixed-length string, called a hash, using a one-way mathematical function.
Proof of StakeA blockchain consensus mechanism in which validators lock up cryptocurrency as collateral to earn the right to propose and confirm blocks.
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