Enhancing Blockchain Consensus With FPGA: Accelerating Implementation for Efficiency

Abstract

Because of its versatility across various applications, Blockchain has emerged as a technology garnering significant interest. It has effectively addressed the challenge of transitioning from a low-trust, centralized ledger maintained by a single third-party to a high-trust, decentralized structure maintained by multiple entities, often referred to as validating nodes. Consequently, numerous blockchain systems have arisen for a multitude of purposes. Nevertheless, a considerable number of these blockchain systems are plagued by significant deficiencies concerning their performance and security. These issues have to be rectified before the realization of a widespread adoption. An essential element within any blockchain system is its foundational consensus algorithm, a crucial determinant of both its performance and security attributes. Consequently, to tackle the shortcomings observed in various blockchain systems, the hardware implementation of a series of established and innovative consensus algorithms was carried out as part of this work. This paper aims to compare and analyze the different consensus methods in blockchain, namely PoS (Proof of Stake), PoW (Proof of Work) and PoA (Proof of Authority) using VHDL (Very High-Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language). Each of these methods has unique characteristics that influence the validation of transactions and the addition of blocks to the blockchain. In this context, we aim to demonstrate the importance of optimizing consensus execution time via IPs (Intellectual Property) in VHDL. We also evaluate their impact on security, scalability and performance for IoT applications.

SHA-256 Hardware Proposal for IoT Devices in the Blockchain Context

“…The work presented in [ 24 ] discusses the implementation of blockchain consensus algorithms on FPGAs, focusing on optimizing performance, security, and scalability for IoT applications. The authors explore different consensus methods, such as proof of work (PoW), proof of stake (PoS), and proof of authority (PoA), using the VHDL language for programming the FPGAs.…”

“…This paper presents significant advancements over the works discussed in [ 24 , 45 , 46 ], addressing challenges related to energy efficiency and the scalability of blockchain systems in IIoT applications. While the study in [ 45 ] focuses on performance analysis of hardware caching techniques for blockchain databases, this paper extends the scope to integrate energy-efficient solutions and adaptable consensus mechanisms critical for the IIoT.…”

“…While the study in [ 45 ] focuses on performance analysis of hardware caching techniques for blockchain databases, this paper extends the scope to integrate energy-efficient solutions and adaptable consensus mechanisms critical for the IIoT. The work in [ 24 ] explores the implementation of consensus algorithms on FPGAs. However, our work goes further by providing a deeper and more optimized integration with the specific hardware and software requirements of the IIoT.…”

“…We present the hardware implementation on an FPGA, highlighting remarkable results regarding the balance between hardware resources, throughput, and power consumption using multiple cores for the SHA-256 algorithm. This proposal is particularly suitable for practical challenges in blockchain environments for IoT devices [ 22 , 23 , 24 ], achieving a throughput of approximately Gbps with 16 cores on a single FPGA and reducing dynamic power consumption by nearly ×1000 compared to existing works. The chosen device for validating the proposal was the Xilinx Virtex 6 xc6vlx240t-1ff1156 FPGA.…”