Storage Power Consensus

The core cryptographic proof that underpins SPC, demonstrating that a miner is dedicating physical storage space over a continuous period of time. Unlike Proof-of-Work's one-time puzzle, PoSt requires repeated, unpredictable challenges to stored data to prove ongoing commitment.

• Sealing: The initial process of encoding data into a format that commits storage.
• WindowPoSt: Frequent proofs (e.g., daily) to verify all sectors are maintained.
• WinningPoSt: A proof generated for a specific sector to win the right to mine a block.

The fundamental unit of storage commitment in SPC. A sector is a fixed-size chunk of disk space (e.g., 32GiB or 64GiB) that a miner fills with sealed data and commits to the network via a cryptographic commitment (the CommR).

• Miners pledge sectors to increase their storage power.
• Each sector has a lifetime (e.g., 1.5 years) during which the miner must continuously provide valid PoSts.
• Failure to prove a sector results in slashing of the miner's collateral.

The mechanism for leader election. The network maintains a power table tracking each miner's proven storage. Expected Consensus uses this table to pseudo-randomly select a miner to propose a block, with probability weighted by their share of total network power.

• Provides probabilistic finality; chains are weighted by their total committed storage power.
• Enables storage-based security: attacking the chain requires acquiring a majority of the network's physical storage hardware, not just hash rate.

The penalty system that secures SPC by punishing unreliable or malicious miners. Slashing occurs for provable faults, such as:

• Consensus Fault: Signing two blocks at the same height (double-signing).
• Storage Fault: Failing to submit a valid WindowPoSt for a committed sector. Penalties involve burning a portion of the miner's locked collateral (initial pledge) and burning all block rewards earned from the faulty sector. This aligns miner incentives with network reliability.

A cryptographic primitive used in some SPC implementations (e.g., Filecoin) to ensure the unpredictability and fairness of leader election. A VDF imposes a minimum compute time to produce an output, even on parallel hardware.

• Used to create a ticket chain that adds entropy to the leader election process.
• Prevents a miner with large storage power from grinding through many possibilities to always win blocks.
• Ensures the leader election is a function of elapsed real time.

The underlying cryptographic primitive for SPC. Unlike Proof-of-Work (hash computation) or Proof-of-Stake (token ownership), it proves a node has allocated a specific amount of storage resources. Common implementations include:

• Proof-of-Replication (PoRep): Proves data is uniquely stored.
• Proof-of-Spacetime (PoSt): Proves data is stored continuously over time. This creates a Sybil-resistant, resource-based consensus layer.

SPC protocols offer distinct benefits compared to other consensus models:

• Energy Efficiency: Significantly lower energy consumption than Proof-of-Work.
• Useful Resource: Allocated storage has intrinsic utility (data storage).
• Decentralization: Lowers hardware barriers compared to ASIC mining, potentially increasing validator distribution.
• Security: Attack cost is tied to acquiring and provisioning large amounts of storage, which is less liquid and more physically constrained than tokens or hash rate.

SPC's primary security mechanism is the cost of acquiring and maintaining provable storage capacity. This acts as a Sybil resistance mechanism, making it expensive to create many fake identities. However, unlike Proof-of-Stake, there is no direct slashing of staked assets for misbehavior, creating a potential 'nothing-at-stake' problem where validators may be incentivized to act maliciously if the cost of acquiring new storage is low relative to potential rewards.

A significant threat is the long-range attack, where an adversary amasses enough historical storage proofs to create an alternative chain from a point far in the past. Defenses include:

• Windowed PoSt (Proof-of-Spacetime): Requiring continuous, sequential proofs makes rewriting long histories computationally infeasible.
• VDFs (Verifiable Delay Functions): Introducing a mandatory time delay for creating new blocks prevents rapid chain reorganization.
• Checkpointing: Client software or trusted parties can hard-code recent block hashes to establish a canonical history.

The capital expenditure for high-performance storage hardware and operational costs (power, bandwidth) create economies of scale. This can lead to mining pool centralization, where a few large storage providers dominate the network's consensus power. Centralization reduces censorship resistance and increases the risk of collusion or 51% attacks. Mitigations include using consumer-grade hardware, algorithmically penalizing large concentrations of power, or incorporating decentralized staking tokens alongside storage.

A validator can produce a valid block header but withhold the underlying transaction data, preventing the network from verifying state transitions—a data withholding attack. This stalls the chain. Solutions include:

• Data Availability Sampling (DAS): Light clients randomly sample small chunks of block data to probabilistically guarantee its availability.
• Erasure Coding: Redundantly encoding block data so the full block can be reconstructed from a subset of shares.
• Fisherman's Game: A challenge-response protocol where any node can challenge a block producer to reveal withheld data, with slashing penalties for non-compliance.

Security relies on the cryptographic soundness of Proof-of-Replication (PoRep) and Proof-of-Spacetime (PoSt). Vulnerabilities here are catastrophic. Risks include:

• Prover Efficiency Gains: If a prover can generate proofs faster or with less storage than assumed, the security model collapses.
• Hardware-Specific Optimizations: ASICs or FPGAs could break cost assumptions, leading to centralization.
• Cryptographic Break: A breakthrough in solving the underlying computational problems (e.g., collision-resistant hashing) would invalidate all proofs. Regular audits and post-quantum readiness are critical.

A broad category of consensus mechanisms where network security is derived from participants proving they are dedicating storage resources. Storage Power Consensus is a specific, robust implementation of this concept, often associated with Filecoin. Key characteristics include:

• Verifiable Storage: Miners must cryptographically prove they are storing client data.
• Useful Work: The consensus resource (storage) has inherent utility beyond securing the chain.
• Retrieval Markets: Often paired with a separate market for fast data retrieval.

A cryptographic proof that a storage provider is storing a unique, physical copy of a specific piece of data. It is a core cryptographic primitive within Storage Power Consensus to prevent Sybil attacks and ensure data redundancy.

• Unique Encoding: Each miner's copy of the data is uniquely encoded, making it computationally prohibitive to fake multiple copies.
• Sealing: The process of generating these unique copies is called sealing, which is computationally intensive but performed once.
• Foundation for Power: A miner's proven storage (and thus consensus power) is based on successful PoReps.

A proof that a storage provider has continuously stored specific data over a period of time. It is the ongoing, operational proof in Storage Power Consensus that secures the network.

• Windowed Challenges: Miners are randomly challenged to prove they still hold their committed data within a short time window.
• Consensus Backbone: Successful PoSt submissions are the primary actions that grant miners the right to create new blocks and earn rewards.
• Slashing Condition: Failure to provide a valid PoSt results in penalties, aligning miner incentives with reliable storage.

The consensus mechanism used by Bitcoin and Ethereum (historically), where security is derived from computational work. It contrasts with Storage Power Consensus:

• Resource Type: Consumes computational cycles (hash power) vs. allocated storage space.
• Energy Profile: PoW is notoriously energy-intensive; Proof-of-Storage aims for a useful resource expenditure.
• Security Foundation: Both use the costliness of their underlying resource to deter attacks, but the nature of the resource and its utility differ fundamentally.

A consensus mechanism where security is derived from the economic stake (cryptocurrency) locked up by validators. It is the dominant model for modern L1 blockchains like Ethereum.

• Resource Type: Based on financial capital (staked tokens) vs. physical infrastructure (storage hardware).
• Finality: Often provides economic finality faster than probabilistic chains.
• Comparison: While PoS secures transaction ordering, Storage Power Consensus inherently also secures a decentralized storage service, bundling consensus with a utility layer.

A conceptual evolution of Proof-of-Work where the computational effort expended also produces a valuable output beyond blockchain security. Storage Power Consensus is a prime real-world example.

• Dual Purpose: The "work" (storing and proving data) has standalone utility for users.
• Contrast with PoW: Traditional PoW hashing (e.g., SHA-256) produces no external value.
• Other Examples: Include research-focused networks like Primecoin (finding prime numbers) or hypothetical systems solving scientific computations.