Ініціатива Green Mining від Paypal, Energy Web та DMG Blockchain Solutions

Last week Paypal released a whitepaper in partnership with Energy Web and DMG Blockchain Solutions, describing a “Green Mining Initiative” intended to redirect fees from participating users specifically to certified miners powering their operations with renewable energy. I can’t say I’m surprised by this honestly, mining has at this point become very normalized in terms of its use to further renewable energy or climate goals. Mining is actually very suited to this task given its nature, miners are mercenaries looking for the cheapest energy possible to devote towards solving the next block. If you have stranded power, or excess power, they will take it.

The overall architecture of this system though is beyond the territory of Rube Goldberg. I am kind of amazed that this is the level of technical understanding and sophistication that a major company like Paypal has on tap, especially in their Blockchain Research Group specifically focusing on this space. The entire thing is inefficient, absurd, and some of the end goals or possibilities they discuss are not built upon sound economic incentives. The Core Design

The entire gist of the design is to ensure that when a compliant user broadcasts a transaction to the network, only a certified green miner can collect the associated transaction fee. The problem with this is that mining fees from a transaction are collectible from any miner who includes them in a block, not just certified ones. A mechanism is required to guarantee only certain miners can collect a few.