You're reading from Modern Computer Architecture and Organization – Second Edition - Second Edition

Product typeBook

Published inMay 2022

PublisherPackt

ISBN-139781803234519

Edition2nd Edition

Concepts

Computer Architecture

Author (1)

Jim Ledin

Blockchain and Bitcoin Mining Architectures

This chapter begins with a brief introduction to the concepts associated with blockchain, a public, cryptographically secured ledger recording a sequence of transactions. We continue with an overview of the process of bitcoin mining, which appends transactions to the bitcoin blockchain and rewards those who complete this task with payment in the form of bitcoin. Bitcoin processing requires high-performance computing hardware, which is presented in terms of a current-generation bitcoin mining computer architecture. The chapter concludes with a brief introduction to some cryptocurrency alternatives to bitcoin.

After completing this chapter, you will understand the concepts of blockchain and how this technology is used. You will have learned the steps in the bitcoin mining process and will understand the key features of bitcoin mining computer architectures and the attributes of some currently popular cryptocurrencies.

The following...

Technical requirements

The files for this chapter, including answers to the exercises, are available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Modern-Computer-Architecture-and-Organization-Second-Edition.

Introduction to blockchain and bitcoin

The concept of bitcoin first became public in a paper by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 entitled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. The author’s name appears to have been a pseudonym and the identity of the author (or authors) of the paper is not publicly known. The paper laid out the mathematical and cryptographic underpinning of a system for performing decentralized financial transactions.

In a centralized financial system, the operation of the system relies on entities such as governments and banks to monitor and control system activities and to regulate what users of the system are allowed to do.

The bitcoin concept has no centralized regulator and relies entirely on networked peers to competitively interact in a manner that maintains stable system operation. Anyone can join the network as a peer and immediately gain all the privileges available to network participants.

One important feature of the bitcoin design...

The bitcoin mining process

The computational complexity of the SHA-256 algorithm relates directly to the feasibility of bitcoin mining as a profitable endeavor. The only way to determine the SHA-256 hash of a particular data block is to perform all the steps of the SHA-256 algorithm over all the bits in the block.

A key feature of the bitcoin mining process is that it is intentionally very difficult to find a valid nonce that produces a block hash below the current target network hash target. In fact, it is likely to take an enormous number of guesses of different nonce values before a target-satisfying value is found. Due to the lack of any predictable relationship between the block data content and the SHA-256 hash of that block, there is no more efficient method to determine a suitable nonce value than simply hashing the data block repeatedly with varying nonces until a hash turns up that satisfies the target criteria.

The process of identifying a nonce value that satisfies...

Bitcoin mining computer architectures

The SHA-256 algorithm is a well-defined sequence of steps that consists of simple Boolean operations performed repetitively on 32-bit data items. The algorithm does not require very much memory when operating on a small block (bitcoin block headers are always 80 bytes). This type of problem is ideal for performance optimization using a digital hardware design dedicated to this application.

The input to the mining algorithm is a candidate block header. The bitcoin block header contains the following data items:

Bitcoin version number (4 bytes): This field identifies the version of the bitcoin core software. The miner selects a version number that is compatible with the miner’s bitcoin software.
Previous block hash (32 bytes): The hash of the previous block in the blockchain. This value is retrieved from the bitcoin network as the hash of the current latest block in the blockchain.
Merkle root (32 bytes): This hash...

Alternative types of cryptocurrency

Bitcoin mining began as a profitable diversion for computer enthusiasts that made use of spare computing cycles on their processors. As the use of expensive, noisy, power-hungry mining systems has grown to an industrial scale, the ability to make even a minimal profit with a homemade bitcoin mining system has disappeared.

This is one reason behind the development of numerous cryptocurrencies as alternatives to bitcoin, which are commonly referred to as altcoins. Some altcoins are designed to make it more difficult and more expensive to design an ASIC to solve the challenge required to mine the coin. Some are designed to avoid the compute-intensive proof of work that forms the basis of bitcoin. By avoiding intentionally compute-intensive operations, these coins substantially reduce the amount of electrical energy required to mine and transact with the coin.

For any cryptocurrency to become widely accepted and used, new users must be confident...

Summary

This chapter began with a brief introduction to the concepts associated with the blockchain, a public, cryptographically secured ledger recording a sequence of financial transactions. The discussion continued with an overview of the process of bitcoin mining, which appends transactions to the blockchain sequence and rewards those who complete this task with payment in the form of bitcoin. Bitcoin processing requires high-performance computing hardware, which is often specifically designed for this task. The chapter concluded with a description of the features of these hardware architectures.

Having completed this chapter, you understand what the bitcoin blockchain is and how it is used. You learned the steps in the bitcoin mining process and understand the key features of dedicated bitcoin mining computer architectures.

The next chapter will discuss the capabilities of self-navigating vehicle processing architectures, including the types of sensors and data a self...

Exercises

Visit the blockchain explorer at https://bitaps.com and locate the list of last blocks on that page. Click on a block number and you will be presented with a display containing the hexadecimal listing of the block header along with its SHA-256 hash. Copy both items and write a program to determine if the hash provided is the correct hash of the header. Remember to perform SHA-256 twice to compute the header hash.
Set up a full bitcoin peer node and connect it to the bitcoin network. Download the bitcoin core software from https://bitcoin.org/en/download. It is best to have a fast internet connection and at least 200 GB of free disk space.

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Author (1)

Jim Ledin

Jim Ledin is the CEO of Ledin Engineering, Inc. Jim is an expert in embedded software and hardware design and testing. He is also an expert in system cybersecurity assessment and penetration testing. He has a B.S. degree in aerospace engineering from Iowa State University and an M.S. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Jim is a registered professional electrical engineer in California, a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP), a Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), and a Certified Penetration Tester (CPT).
Read more about Jim Ledin

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