Steemit Crypto Academy Contest / S1W3 – Blockchain through the concepts by @churchangel

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Tell us about your favorite concept or term related to blockchain, try to be explanatory and make sure to give your opinion

PROOF OF WORK

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Before I dive into explaining the Proof Of Work consensus mechanism I would like to share some light on blockchain and consensus algorithm, The blockchain could be described as a digital store where digital data can be stored and distributed all across entire system recorded by every node and can not be altered by anyone after it has been recorded, the data stored in blockchain blocks are often linked one to another via cryptographic hashes
The proof of work is a consensus algorithm the first of its kind to be adopted and implemented it was originally brought to light by Markus Jakobsson and Ari Juels but was made popular when it was adopted by the bitcoin blockchain, it was adapted into the bitcoin network to solve the initial double-spending problem all forms of digital currency had at the time.
The Proof of Work can be technically explained as a consensus that uses computational power to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate computational actions on the network and it does so by requiring users/nodes in the eco-system to solve a complex mathematical puzzle in a process called mining which will determine legitimacy or illegitimacy of a record/transaction and will then be verified across the network.
The Proof Of Work consensus algorithm requires miners all across the ecosystem to compete with each other to solve the cryptographic puzzle through brute force i.e computer constantly guessing random codes till it figures out the correct one, the puzzle gets increased difficulty proportionally to the competition between miners i.e the more miners they are competing to solve the cryptographic puzzle the more difficult the puzzle gets. Once the cryptographic puzzle is solved by a miner he can then verify the block and get rewarded in cryptocurrency for solving the puzzle and broadcast the block to the network which is then verified by others in the blockchain and added to the rest of the blocks

Why do you think it is important in the blockchain?

SOME IMPORTANCE OF POW HIGHLIGHTED

PIONEER CONSENSUS ALGORITHM
SECURITY
DECENTRALIZATION
TACKLED DOUBLE SPENDING

It goes without saying that the Proof Of Work is the first consensus algorithm and the first solution to the double spending problem that seemed to be a road block to all forms of digital money at the time.
The Proof Of Work consensus mechanism dealt with the double spending problem by ensuring everyone in the network has the same record hence making it impossible to spend the same amount twice cause every one knows you spent it already, the Proof Of was eliminated the double spending while simultaneously making the eco system self reliant i.e decentralized
The Proof Of Work consensus mechanism helps protect the ecosystem from malicious activities, when a miner mines a block it is crossed checked by the other miners and the entire block hence even miners cannot perform malicious activities in the block. Meanwhile the blockchain is not hack proof but it is considered to be almost impossible to hack a blockchain cause the Proof Of Work consensus ensure all nodes in the ecosystem have a recent copy of the public ledger hence one would need to hack more than half of all the nodes across the globe to be able to do that

Do you think that the existence of the blockchain would be possible without this concept? Is there an alternative or similar term?

NO AND YES

Strongly No because we all know that bitcoin was not the first attempt at creating digital money we had other failed attempts and all didn’t succeed because none could tackle the double-spending problem. The introduction of the Proof Of Work concept created a means through which the double-spending problem was tackled hence a go-ahead for digital money, if the problem wasn’t tackled the blockchain would have not been made possible hence they won’t be any blockchain right now.

And Yes, ever since the creation of the blockchain they have been attempts to create an alternative consensus algorithm with better perks and much more optimal options, and most of these attempts have been successful. Some of these alternatives to the Proof Of Work include

• PROOF OF STAKE
• PROOF OF HISTORY
• DELEGATED PROOF OF STAKE
• PROOF OF AUTHORITY etc

Do you think it is possible to improve this term in some way? Explain to us how

Yes
Anyone familiar with the Proof Of Work concept would liken the consensus mechanism to energy-consuming and computational power-consuming. We know the blockchain generates a complex cryptographic puzzle that needs to be solved before the block can be mined and this requires a high-end computer to solve which In turn requires a very good amount of energy to keep running
Now assuming a more directive approach was selected towards this mining in Proof Of Work if miners are given a turn each to mine a block without the cryptographic hash after which other miners in the queue would verify the legitimacy of the block mined before adding it to the blockchain.
This would greatly drop the computational power required to mine a block hence the excessive consumption of energy by this consensus would be greatly reduced as well, this would also mean the blocks are going to be mined faster hence the network's scalability would increase significantly as well. This is just my opinion

CONCLUSION

The Proof Of Work paved the way for other consensus mechanisms to be implemented although with the advancement other blockchains I strongly believe it would be in the world’s in the general best interest if the bitcoin network switches it consensus mechanism to a much more eco-friendly consensus mechanism as they are a lot of successful alternatives mentioned above