A proof-of-authority consensus validation process could significantly reduce energy use. The blockchain platform developer Energy Web Foundation has unveiled a series of developments including an answer to energy blockchains’ biggest challenge: power use. EWF said the architecture it is developing for energy blockchain companies would use a proof-of-authority (POA) consensus validation process instead of proof-of-work, which is the dominant protocol today and is the cause of bitcoin’s massive waste of electricity . Proof-of-work systems, such as bitcoin’s Hashcash function, allow anyone who can solve complex, energy-intensive computing algorithms to validate transactions. With POA, validation will fall to a set of trusted “industry validators,” usually developers. This feature could cut energy requirements significantly. Jesse Morris, EWF secretary, told GTM that POA would allow energy sector blockchain companies to scale to millions of transactions with an electricity consumption around that of a medium-sized office block, rather than a medium-sized country, as […]