On the Construction of a Post-Quantum Blockchain

Abstract

Consensus and transaction are the main parts in a blockchain system. However, most cryptographic protocols used in these parts of current blockchains are vulnerable to rapid development of quantum computers. Besides, traditional proof of work (PoW) based consensus protocols such as Bitcoin can not supply memory mining. And the transaction capacity of each block in a blockchain is limited that need to be expanded. In this paper, a new post-quantum poof of work (PoW) consensus algorithm is proposed, which can be used to not only protect the blockchain under the quantum computing attack over existing classical hash based PoW algorithms but also can supply memory mining. Meanwhile, a identity-based post-quantum signature is embed into a transaction process so as to construct lightweight transactions. We thereafter give a detailed description on how the post-quantum lightweight transaction in a blockchain runs. All in all, this work can help to enrich the research on the future post-quantum blockchain (PQB).