Microsoft’s Ethereum Blockchain Eliminates Mining

Software giant Microsoft has launched a new Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) product that enables businesses across the industry to install a flexible form of Ethereum created especially for enterprise environment.

Ethereum Proof-of-Authority on Azure which was revealed on Tuesday enables enterprises to create applications on an Ethereum blockchain that is not protected by a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm and hence eliminates mining.

Azure Global software engineer Cody Born noted that PoW “works great in anonymous, open networks where cryptocurrency promotes security on the network. However, in private/consortium networks the underlying ether has no value.”

Born pointed out that, given that all participants on an enterprise blockchain network are well recognized, governance can be different from network operation.

In conclusion, the Proof-of Authority product has a built-in decentralized application (DApp or dApp) known as the “Governance DApp” that offers group members with the power to rule the network or delegate their voting power to other. Network participants can also delegate their voting power to others.  Additionally, network participants can give other nodes to vote on their behalf in case their primary nodes go offline, allowing all members to have continual consensus participants.

In turn, network administrator can access on-chain voting to vote on and alter network authorities in a transparent and audible way.

In addition to Azure’s original PoW-based Ethereum product, any blockchain using this new consensus model can install it in as little as five minutes, offering enterprises with a “single-click” DLT solution.

To enhance the usage of the product, Microsoft integrated support for smart contracts developed using Parity’s WebAssembly (Wasm) toolkit, allowing developers to write smart contracts in familiar programming languages including C, C++, and Rust in lieu of learning Solidity, Ethereum’s primary programming language.

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