24 July 2023
Quantum Blockchain Technologies Plc
( “QBT” or “the Company”)
ASIC EnhancedBoost – Patent Application
QBT (AIM: QBT) is pleased to announce that its cryptography expert
and Cryptographic Optimisation team have
developed what the Board believes to be an innovative approach to
SHA-256 optimised computation for
Bitcoin (“BTC”) mining. The Company believes that this novel
approach, called
Message Scheduling For Cryptographic Hashing
(“MSFCA”), addresses one of the most challenging problems in BTC
mining: partial pre-computing of future blockchains’
blocks.
A patent application in respect of MSFCA has been filed at the UK
Intellectual Property Office. If the application is successful, the
Company intends to apply for the patent to be extended
internationally.
SUMMARY
-
MSFCA can perform pre-calculations for future BTC blocks before the
current block is closed
-
Allows miners to use less logic gates, thus lower energy
costs
-
Implementation can be made to QBT’s current SHA-256 architecture
with feasible modifications
-
Effective potential area saving is around 8%
BACKGROUND
Approximately every ten minutes a block is added to the BTC
blockchain. Each new block represents the confirmation of the
validity of the encrypted transactions, i.e. transfer of BTCs
between senders and receivers, usually between, on average, 2,000
and 3,000. The miner who finds the winning hash for the block
within ten minutes, causes the block to be closed and receives the
reward; currently 6.25 BTCs, plus the transaction fees. A new block
in the following ten minutes can then start to be processed, but
only when the previous block has been closed, because the starting
information to compute the new blocks, contains information from
the previous closed block.
MSFCA
The computational optimisation obtained by MSFCA allows, under BTC
mining special conditions, the miner to asynchronously perform
(i.e. not within the temporal boundaries of the current block being
computed)
partial pre-computations of future blocks, before the ten minute
computation ‘time target’ for closing a new block begins. The
benefit being that all the logical gates and computation time on
the ASIC chip needed for the specific partial pre-computation are
saved.
QBT believes this is a novel procedure, potentially capable, in
certain conditions, of addressing a key BTC mining limitation that
prevents asynchronous pre-computation of a new block in the
blockchain prior to the previous block being
closed.
Application of MSFCA is not believed to enhance SHA-256’s
computation performance time; however, by enabling partial SHA-256
pre-processing of the block, it makes it possible to save the
hardware resources otherwise necessary for standard SHA-256
computation. From this perspective, it is anticipated that energy
would be saved due to less logic gates being present on the ASIC
allowing the same chip area to be used to implement additional
SHA-256 engines and increasing the overall speed of the
process.
The key principle of this approach is that the partial
pre-computation can occur asynchronously. Implementation of MSFCA
will require a specific ASIC architecture, hence a specific ASIC
chip will need to be designed, however the Company believes this
would only require a feasible modification of the current SHA-256
proprietary implementation being developed by QBT.
In terms of SHA-256 ASIC chip areas, the projected potential saving
would be in the region of 25% for one instance of SHA256
out of the three instances involved in Bitcoin mining. However,
because of other well-known optimisation techniques, the
effective
potential area saving of MSFCA is estimated by the Company’s ASIC
designer to be around 8% on average.
The handling of pre-processed data requires additional circuitry,
the impact of which is expected to be negligible in the near
future.
While MSFCA can be implemented with currently available technology,
by adding a logical gate overhead, in the near future, the Company
believes these overheads will be less relevant, making this
approach even more competitive.
Despite
present technological
limitations, (for example, the limited throughput of memory chips),
the Company believes that it is strategically important to file a
patent application covering the novel approach created through the
use of MSFCA.
Francesco Gardin, CEO and
Chairman 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 a 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.”
This announcement contains inside information for the purposes
of Article 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) 596/2014 as it
forms part of UK domestic law by virtue of the European Union
(Withdrawal) Act 2018 ("MAR"), and is disclosed in accordance with
the Company's obligations under Article 17 of MAR.
For further information please contact:
Quantum Blockchain Technologies Plc
Francesco Gardin, CEO and Executive
Chairman +39
335 296573
SP Angel Corporate Finance (Nominated
Adviser & Broker)
Jeff Keating +44
(0)20 3470 0470
Kasia Brzozowska
Leander (Financial
PR)
Christian
Taylor-Wilkinson +44
(0) 7795 168 157
About Quantum Blockchain Technologies
Plc
QBT (AIM: QBT) is an AIM listed investment company which has
recently realigned its strategic focus to technology related
investments, with special regard to Quantum computing, Blockchain,
Cryptocurrencies and AI sectors. The Company has commenced an
aggressive R&D and investment programme in the dynamic world of
Blockchain Technology, which includes cryptocurrency mining and
other advanced blockchain applications.
Glossary of Terms
ASIC:
An Application-Specific Integrated Circuit is an integrated circuit
chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for
general-purpose use. ASIC chips are typically fabricated using
metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) technology, as MOS integrated
circuit chips.
Asynchronous Pre-Computation:
Computation performed in advance of the main computation, reducing
therefore the amount of logic gates or software code of the main
computation.
Chip Area:
The silicon area of a computer chip used by the logical gates,
measured in square millimeters. In general, the smaller the area
the less energy required.
MSCFA:
Acronym of Message Scheduling For Cryptographic
Hashing,
which is a key part of the SHA-256 Algorithm to be computed before
the 64 compression steps.
SHA-256:
Secure Hashing Algorithm (SHA)-256 is the hash function and mining
algorithm of the Bitcoin protocol, referring to the cryptographic
hash function that outputs a 256 bits long value.
Ten Minutes Computation Time
Target:
is the block time on the BTC blockchain, which is 10 minutes. This
means that every
10 minutes a new block of transactions is added to the blockchain
and transactions within the block are considered to be
“processed”.