Smooth Transition from PoW to PoS

Keywords: Blockchain, Consensus, Proof of Work, Proof of Stake, Transition

We develop a method that facilitates a seamless transition from a Proof-of-Work (PoW)-based blockchain to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS)- based blockchain, by leveraging the Minotaur hybrid consensus protocol [CCS’22]. Our research investigates the feasibility of using weight parameters within the Minotaur protocol to encourage miners to maintain or reduce their current mining status during the transition. We build a game-theoretic model to identify the strategies and utilities of the miners and analyse the model using Nash equilibrium. As a result, we suggest a weight parameter of −1/20 + 1 for a short transition lasting 4 epochs, and for a longer- term transition spanning 10 epochs, we suggest selecting a weight parameter of −1/50 + 1.