The British cryptocurrency Electroneum (ETN) seems to be having issues with being mined lately. The cryptocurrency which was launched via an Initial Coin Offering on September 14th, 2017 when the wave of the blockchain technology and cryptocurrency was finally getting to see the light, is basically known for its ease to manage and then the ability to mine on a mobile app. However, the ability to mine via normal browser recently had glitches, which does not seem to be going away anytime soon.
PROOF OF WORK VS PROOF OF RESPONSIBILITY
The major reason for these glitches is that Electroneum (ETN) moved from a Proof of Work to a Proof of Responsibility. Both methods of proof are simply different types of algorithm in which the Blockchain uses to reach consensus on its network. Now, let’s break it all down.
For the blockchain technology to work effectively in a decentralised form, it need a way to verify which transaction is real or fake. Remember that to be decentralised means not having a single power house over the network. Like the commercial bank receives instruction from its headquarters, the blockchain technology is decentralised, it has no headquarters. Therefore, to receive instruction on its Modus Operandi, the blockchain technology relies on the use of computer algorithms which are stated by the programmers of the blockchain network. This means that be very single guiding rules and regulations, do’s and don’ts are embedded into the software programme of the blockchain technology network. These set of instructions are what is called “Consensus”.
Now, there are various means to reach consensus on the blockchain network. Two of the common examples we’ll be explaining are the PROOF OF WORK and PROOF OF RESPONSIBILITY.
THE PROOF Of WORK (PoW) In Blockchain technology is the algorithm used to confirm transactions and produce new blocks to the chain. With PoW, a set of people caller nodes are used to checkmate every transaction that is made on the network. The nodes which are also called the “Miners” compete against each other to complete transactions on the network and get rewarded with a fraction of the coins which is being used for transaction. For some cryptocurrency, the actions of the miners is what creates the token. That is, the more transaction users make on the network, the more coins the miners get rewarded with which helps to maintain a balance of having an excess of the token in circulation.
The nodes on miners validates every transaction in the network by solving a piece of mathematical puzzle. The process is very competitive, which means that the less the transaction occurring on the network, the more complicated the mathematical puzzle will be and the more the transaction, the less complex the test becomes. This is used to ensure competitiveness and at the same time speed of verifying transactions on the network to avoid transactions getting stuck.
THE PROOF OF RESPONSIBILITY on the other hand is simply a unique protocol which brings new key characteristics to Electroneum’s cryptocurrency ETN, some of which are benefits to the users, security and reliability on the exchanges and the nodes validating the blocks, and to be able to pick responsible organisations that actually empower people and who will mine the coin and by no means attempt to hack the network for personal gain. Chris Harrison, Electroneum’s head of blockchain developer says PoR holds miners responsible to maintain the integrity of the payment network and spend the block rewards they receive responsibly to help poor people in line with Electroneum’s humanitarian agenda.
CONCLUSION
It is therefore the switch from PoW to PoR by Electroneum that has made mining seemingly impossible except for NGO nodes. While users cannot mine ETN on the www.moneorminer.rocks website now, there are still coins like AEON, MSR and TRTL coin that can be mined. It is not clear what happens to the leftover coins but it is clear that www.moneorminer.rocks has no control over what happens to mined coins, because the Hashvault Pro pool handles the earnings and payout, while MoneroMiner.Rocks is just the link between the pool and the users’ computers. More information about the mined coin and the switch from PoW to PoR can be gotten here.
