Proof-of-Proof vs. Merged Mining
📜 TL;DR:
Merged mining allows Bitcoin miners to simultaneously mine a Bitcoin sidechain, which can limit decentralization and lead to an attack on the sidechain.
The Proof-of-Proof (PoP) consensus protocol utilized by Hemi enables PoP miners to independently publish data to the Bitcoin blockchain, cutting off this attack vector.
⛔️ The Trouble Mith Merged Mining
Bitcoin miners must choose to participate by running nodes for the sidechain, which can curtail decentralization.
This makes the sidechain more susceptible to attack, as Bitcoin miners can collude to attack the sidechain at no cost while reaping Bitcoin block rewards.
Merged mining can introduce new security problems and issues with incentives.
🔍 How Proof-of-Proof Works
Hemi uses a consensus protocol called Proof-of-Proof (PoP), which allows Hemi to exceed Bitcoin's security at scale.
Bitcoin miners don’t need to participate in Hemi directly; they confirm blocks that include Hemi transactions and collect transaction fees for doing so.
Users who do want to earn rewards in Hemi’s native token can run a super-lightweight PoP miner to publish Hemi consensus data to Bitcoin.
👉 It’s simple: Help create proofs and get tokens.
Each new Hemi block receives a Bitcoin confirmation, making reorganization increasingly unlikely until the block reaches finality.
Thus, in the Proof-of-Proof protocol, unlike with merged mining, Bitcoin miners needn’t be active to benefit; they can’t collude to attack the chain, and superfinality comes fast.
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