Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano and IOG as well as one of the inventors of Ethereum, has just produced a video in which he talks about the proposals made by the White House to clamp down on all energy-heavy businesses, including Bitcoin mining. Hoskinson is of the opinion that the Cardano protocol, Ofelimous, could be able to assist Bitcoin in maintaining its status as a cryptocurrency. Ofelimous is a proof-of-useful-work protocol that was developed to lessen the impact that proof-of-work chains, such as Bitcoin and a great number of other cryptocurrencies, have on the environment.
What Is Ofelimous?
The goal of the Ofelimous protocol is to limit the energy that is used by proof-of-work chains to the absolute minimum. Proof-of-useful-work, as opposed to proof-of-work, assures that the computational capacity of miners is being directed toward the resolution of issues originating from the real world.
However, this makes the blockchain that has embraced it less secure since an adversary may utilize the system to solve simple issues, resulting in the creation of more blocks than miners could with the same resources. However, Cardano is certain that Ofelimous will readily find a solution to this problem. Hoskinson suggests that miners of Bitcoin should transition to this PoUW protocol so that they may reduce their carbon footprint, which is already on par with that left by smaller nations.
The White House has proposed that cryptocurrency mining be outlawed until it can become more environmentally friendly. A study on the excessive use of energy by a variety of businesses, including bitcoin mining, was recently issued by a group of parliamentarians working for the White House. The research was compiled in response to an order given by President Joe Biden in March of this year.
In a word, the research suggests that certain businesses need to be outlawed if there is no feasible way for them to considerably reduce the amount of energy that they use. BTC skeptics have often brought up the problem of the huge carbon footprint that is left behind by the Bitcoin blockchain. According to recent studies, the amount of energy that Bitcoin miners utilize is comparable to the amount of energy that is spent by small nations all over the globe.
The present situation, in which costs for energy supplies are increasing at an alarmingly high rate, makes this problem even more important. However, the paper suggests that proof-of-stake, rather than proof-of-work, should be used for PoW blockchains since doing so would drastically cut the amount of energy such blockchains use.
Switching to alternative crypto-asset technologies such as Proof of Stake might drastically cut total power use to levels that are less than one percent of what they are now. This Ofelimous protocol is used by Cardano, and Ethereum is set to transition to PoW as well. The long-awaited update to Merge is scheduled to happen in about one week, between September 15 and 20.
