Hashing Cache Misses in Blockchain Environments

Abstract

Blockchain environments may mix-and-match different encryption, difficulty, and/or proof-of-work schemes when mining blockchain transactions. Each encryption, difficulty, and/or proof-of-work scheme may be separate, stand-alone programs, files, or third-party services. Blockchain miners may be agnostic to a particular coin's or network's encryption, difficulty, and/or proof-of-work schemes, thus allowing any blockchain miner to process or mine data in multiple blockchains. GPUs, ASICs, and other specialized processing hardware components may be deterred by forcing cache misses, cache latencies, and processor stalls. Hashing, difficulty, and/or proof-of-work schemes require less programming code, consume less storage space/usage in bytes, and execute faster. Blockchain mining schemes may further randomize byte or memory block access, further improve cryptographic security.

1 . A method of deterring a specialized hardware processor in a blockchain environment, comprising:
 receiving, by a miner system, a proof-of-work target scheme associated with the blockchain environment;   identifying, by the miner system, a hashing algorithm that is specified by the proof-of-work target scheme from the proof-of-work mechanism;   receiving, by the miner system, a blockchain transaction associated with the blockchain environment;   generating, by the miner system, a hash value by hashing the blockchain transaction using the hashing algorithm;   forcing, by the miner system, a cache miss by storing a database table having a table size in bytes that exceeds a cache byte size of a processor cache memory operating in the miner system;   retrieving, by the miner system, an entry in the database table from a main memory operating in the miner system; and   generating, by the miner system, a randomized hash value by swapping a portion of the hash value with the entry in the database table retrieved from the main memory;   wherein the cache miss deters the specialized hardware processor in the blockchain environment.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising identifying a proof-of-work mechanism that is specified by the proof-of-work target scheme associated with the blockchain environment. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , further comprising generating a proof-of-work result by executing the proof-of-work mechanism using the randomized hash value generated by the swapping of the portion of the hash value with the entry in the database table retrieved from the main memory. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising identifying a difficulty algorithm that is specified by the proof-of-work target scheme associated with the blockchain environment. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , further comprising generating a difficulty by executing the difficulty algorithm using the randomized hash value generated by the swapping of the portion of the hash value with the entry in the database table retrieved from the main memory. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , further comprising comparing the difficulty to the proof-of-work target scheme associated with the blockchain environment. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising identifying a proof-of-work algorithm that is specified by the proof-of-work target scheme associated with the blockchain environment. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7 , further comprising generating a proof-of-work result by executing the proof-of-work algorithm using the randomized hash value generated by the swapping of the portion of the hash value with the entry in the database table retrieved from the main memory. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , further comprising comparing the proof-of-work result to the proof-of-work target scheme associated with the blockchain environment. 
     
     
         10 . A miner system for mining a blockchain transaction associated with a blockchain environment, comprising:
 a central processing unit; and   a memory device storing instructions that, when executed by the central processing unit, perform operations, comprising:   receiving a proof-of-work target scheme associated with the blockchain environment;   identifying a hashing algorithm that is specified by the proof-of-work target scheme from the proof-of-work mechanism;   receiving a blockchain transaction associated with the blockchain environment;   generating a hash value by hashing the blockchain transaction using the hashing algorithm;   forcing a cache miss by storing a database table having a table size in bytes that exceeds a cache byte size of a processor cache memory;   retrieving an entry in the database table from a main memory; and   generating a randomized hash value by swapping a portion of the hash value with the entry in the database table retrieved from the main memory;   wherein the randomized hash value generated by the swapping of the portion of the hash value with the entry in the database table retrieved from the main memory deters the mining of the blockchain transaction using an application-specific integrated circuit.   
     
     
         11 . The miner system of  claim 10 , wherein the operations further comprise identifying a proof-of-work mechanism that is specified by the proof-of-work target scheme associated with the blockchain environment. 
     
     
         12 . The miner system of  claim 11 , wherein the operations further comprise generating a proof-of-work result by executing the proof-of-work mechanism using the randomized hash value generated by the swapping of the portion of the hash value with the entry in the database table retrieved from the main memory. 
     
     
         13 . The miner system of  claim 12 , wherein the operations further comprise comparing the proof-of-work result to the proof-of-work target scheme associated with the blockchain environment. 
     
     
         14 . The miner system of  claim 10 , wherein the operations further comprise identifying a difficulty algorithm that is specified by the proof-of-work target scheme associated with the blockchain environment. 
     
     
         15 . The miner system of  claim 14 , wherein the operations further comprise generating a difficulty by executing the difficulty algorithm using the randomized hash value generated by the swapping of the portion of the hash value with the entry in the database table retrieved from the main memory. 
     
     
         16 . The miner system of  claim 10 , wherein the operations further comprise identifying a proof-of-work algorithm that is specified by the proof-of-work target scheme associated with the blockchain environment. 
     
     
         17 . The miner system of  claim 16 , wherein the operations further comprise generating a proof-of-work result by executing the proof-of-work algorithm using the randomized hash value generated by the swapping of the portion of the hash value with the entry in the database table retrieved from the main memory. 
     
     
         18 . A memory device storing instructions that, when executed by a central processing unit, perform operations that mine a blockchain transaction associated with a blockchain environment, the operations comprising:
 receiving a proof-of-work target scheme associated with the blockchain environment;   identifying a hashing algorithm that is specified by the proof-of-work target scheme from the proof-of-work mechanism;   receiving a blockchain transaction associated with the blockchain environment;   generating a hash value by hashing the blockchain transaction using the hashing algorithm;   forcing a cache miss by storing a database table having a table size in bytes that exceeds a cache byte size of a processor cache memory;   retrieving an entry in the database table from a main memory; and   generating a randomized hash value by swapping a portion of the hash value with the entry in the database table retrieved from the main memory;   wherein the randomized hash value generated by the swapping of the portion of the hash value with the entry in the database table retrieved from the main memory deters the mining of the blockchain transaction using an application-specific integrated circuit.   
     
     
         19 . The memory device of  claim 18 , wherein the operations further comprise identifying a proof-of-work mechanism that is specified by the proof-of-work target scheme associated with the blockchain environment. 
     
     
         20 . The memory device of  claim 18 , wherein the operations further comprise generating a proof-of-work result by executing the proof-of-work mechanism using the randomized hash value generated by the swapping of the portion of the hash value with the entry in the database table retrieved from the main memory.