creators_name: Wang, J. creators_name: Zhu, J. creators_name: Zhang, M. creators_name: Alam, I. creators_name: Biswas, S. creators_id: Sujit.Biswas@city.ac.uk type: article datestamp: 2024-02-06 11:27:01 lastmod: 2024-02-06 11:30:09 metadata_visibility: show title: Function Virtualization Can Play a Great Role in Blockchain Consensus ispublished: pub subjects: QA75 full_text_status: public keywords: Internet of Things, Task analysis, Virtualization, Blockchains, Peer-to-peer computing,Hardware, Business note: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ abstract: Bitcoin introduced a cryptocurrency as a form of public ledger consequently that turned into a most popular security technology, Blockchain. Its integrated mining technology lies the key security mechanism. The system allows forming a pool mining group to solve a particular job and share their revenues to their CPU usage while one of them successfully mines a block. To mine a block, a cryptographic puzzle should be solved, which requires significant compute resources that cause huge energy consumption. On the other hand, recent statistics show that low computational energy-restricted Internet of Things (IoT) devices are increasing exponentially. Although it has low energy and limited computation power, it is large in quantity when it is integrated. So we focus on a stochastic geometry theory, which resolves the issue of block mining computation via utilizing multiple mobile IoT devices, given that these IoT devices are Computation Capable Nodes (CCNs). To further normalize this issue, we propose an efficient mathematical solution that uses smart coordination of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) for IoT devices to enable their CPU usage efficiently. At the same time, the work and credit point distribution policy is smartly handled through virtual pool mining. The proposal renders Network Function Virtualization technology to configure VNF, and Service Function Chain technology is utilized to enable the network flow of such VNFs. New algorithms are presented to solve multiple issues like node discovery, computation offloading, and work credit point distribution. Our goal is to minimize energy consumption within the given time constraint. Implementation results show that although virtual functions for block mining require extensive computations in IoT devices, dividing computation work into small fractions called tasks embedded with VNF, and offloading them to nearby CCNs, tend to minimize the cost and energy consumption of individual shared miners. The overall mining process is proved efficient and faster. dates_date: 2022-05-18 dates_date_type: published_online publication: IEEE Access volume: 10 publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) pagerange: 59862-59877 id_number: 10.1109/access.2022.3176349 refereed: TRUE citation_doi: 10.1109/access.2022.3176349 citation: Wang, J., Zhu, J., Zhang, M. , Alam, I. & Biswas, S. ORCID: 0000-0002-6770-9845 view all authorsEPJS_limit_names_shown_load( 'creators_name_32138_et_al', 'creators_name_32138_rest' ); (2022). Function Virtualization Can Play a Great Role in Blockchain Consensus. IEEE Access, 10, pp. 59862-59877. doi: 10.1109/access.2022.3176349 document_url: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/32138/1/Function_Virtualization_Can_Play_a_Great_Role_in_Blockchain_Consensus.pdf