The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis
The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis
Authors: Aahad Abubaker (DePaul University); Tanmay Anand, Sonal Gaikwad, Mahad Haider, Jacklyn McAninch, and Lan Nguyen (Illinois Institute of Technology); Alexandru Orhean (DePaul University); and Ioan Raicu (Illinois Institute of Technology)
Abstract: Cryptographic hash functions are fundamental for ensuring data security and integrity in all consensus algorithms in blockchains. While SHA256 has been widely used in many blockchain implementations, its throughput and efficiency has led the rise of a modern lightweight and speed superior implementation BLAKE3. We compared and contrasted SHA256 and BLAKE3 with a focus on blockchain workloads with small inputs and outputs. We explored different compilers and optimizations, different ways to parallelize using multi-threading and multi-processing, as well as different size systems from small Raspberry Pi 4 to a modern AMD Epyc server. We found that BLAKE3 is superior from a performance perspective. To showcase its strengths, we integrated BLAKE3 into a basic Proof-of-Space implementation that used advanced data index and search, and compared our results to the Chia blockchain plotting mechanism. Our approach offers one to two orders of magnitude higher hash generation and storage rates.
Best Poster Finalist (BP): no
Poster: PDF
Poster summary: PDF
Back to Poster Archive Listing