Bitcoin mining group Quantum Blockchain Technologies PLC (AIM:QBT) has filed a patent application for its Message Scheduling For Cryptographic Hashing (MSFCA) technology with the UK Intellectual Property Office, signalling its commitment to protecting and potentially expanding the innovation on an international scale.
Quantum's MSFCA technology offers a solution to a complex challenge in the world of bitcoin (BTC) mining - the partial pre-computing of future blockchain blocks.
While MSFCA does not directly enhance SHA-256 (the algorithm used for mining bitcoin) computation performance time, it enables partial SHA-256 pre-processing of the block, leading to hardware resource savings.
With fewer logic gates on the ASIC bitcoin mining circuit, the same chip area can be utilised to implement additional SHA-256 engines, thereby increasing the overall speed of the mining process and potentially saving energy.
Implementation of MSFCA will require a specific ASIC architecture, but Quantum believes it can achieve this with feasible modifications to its current SHA-256 proprietary implementation.
The projected potential saving of MSFCA in terms of SHA-256 ASIC chip areas is approximately 25% for one instance of SHA-256 out of the three instances involved in bitcoin mining. When combined with other optimisation techniques, the effective potential area saving is estimated to be around 8% on average by the company's ASIC designer.
Despite present technological limitations, Quantum Blockchain believes the novel approach facilitated by MSFCA has deemed it essential to file a patent application as a safeguard.
Quantum Blockchain’s chief executive and chairman, Francesco Gardin, commented: “While at this juncture we cannot go into the specific details of what we believe is an innovative solution designed by our R&D cryptography team, suffice it to say that the new concept behind this idea disrupts, under special conditions, a fundamental BTC blockchain paradigm; computation for future blocks can take place before the previous block is mined.
“This is quite a radical change of the paradigm, and we believe it is well worth a patent application.
“The current advantage of this approach is the partial pre-processing of future BTC blocks, thereby potentially making redundant a large number of logic gates of a BTC mining ASIC chip, representing a material cost saving, when considering the hundreds of thousands of ASIC chips used in any mid-to-large sized BTC mining facility.”