[Resource Topic] 2017/1168: Itsuku: a Memory-Hardened Proof-of-Work Scheme

Welcome to the resource topic for 2017/1168

Title:
Itsuku: a Memory-Hardened Proof-of-Work Scheme

Authors: Fabien Coelho, Arnaud Larroche, Baptiste Colin

Abstract:

Proof-of-Work (PoW) schemes allow to limit access to resources or to share rewards for crypto-currency mining. The MTP-Argon2 PoW by Biryukov and Khovratovich is loosely based on the Argon2 memory-hard password hashing function. Several attacks have been published. We introduce a new transposed parallel implementation attack which achieves higher performance by circumventing apparent bandwidth requirements. We then present Itsuku, a new scheme that fixes known issues by changing MTP-Argon2 parameters and adds new operations to improve memory hardness. Our scheme is built on a simple security criterion: any implementation which requires half the memory or less should induce at least a times-64 computation cost for difficulty d <= 100. The Itsuku proof size is typically 1/16 th of the initial scheme, while providing better memory hardness. We also describe high-end hardware designs for MTP-Argon2 and Itsuku.

ePrint: https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/1168

See all topics related to this paper.

Feel free to post resources that are related to this paper below.

Example resources include: implementations, explanation materials, talks, slides, links to previous discussions on other websites.

For more information, see the rules for Resource Topics .