Scalable-pos: Towards Decentralized and Efficient Energy Saving Consensus in Blockchain

Blockchain has become peer-to-peer immutable distributed ledger technology network, and its consensus protocol is essential to the management of decentralized data. The consensus algorithm, at core of blockchain technology (BCT), has direct impact on blockchain's security, stability, decentralization, and many other crucial features. A key problem in development of blockchain applications is selecting the right consensus algorithm for various scenarios. Ensuring scalability is the most significant drawback of BCT. The industry has been rejuvenated and new architectures have been sparked by the usage of consensus protocols for blockchains(BC). Researchers analyzed shortcomings of proof of work (PoW) consensus process and subsequently, alternative protocols like proof of stake (PoS) arose. PoS, together with other improvements, lowers the unimaginably high energy usage of PoW, making it protocol of time. In PoS, only the user with highest stake becomes the validator. To overcome this, we propose Scalable Proof of Stake (SPoS), a novel consensus protocol, which is an enhancement of PoS protocol. In the proposed algorithm, each stakeholder based on the stake gets a chance to become the validator and can mine blocks in the blockchain. Clustering of the stakeholders is done using mean shift algorithm. Each cluster gets a different number of blocks to mine in BC. Cluster with highest stake will get a greater number of blocks to mine when compared to other groups and the cluster with the least stake gets least number of blocks to mine when compared to other groups. To mine the blocks, validator is chosen based on the cluster in which he is present. Fair mining is ensured for all stakeholders based on number of stakes. Mining is distributed among all the stakeholders. Since the validators are chosen fast, the transaction rate is high in the network. Validators in PoS are selected according to the quantity of cryptocurrency they stake. More stakeholders will get chance of validating blocks and receiving rewards. Over time, this reduces fairness and decentralization by concentrating on wealth and power. This is addressed in SPoS using clustering-based validator assignment.