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In most DePIN projects' incentive schemes, operators of hardware devices provide services externally and use this as leverage to claim rewards from the incentive system. For example, in Helium, network hotspots earn HNT rewards by providing signal coverage. However, before receiving incentives from the system, DePIN devices need to present evidence to prove that they have indeed exerted a certain "effort" as required.
Such evidence, used to prove that one has provided certain services or engaged in certain activities in the real world, is known as Proof of Physical Work (PoPW). In the protocol design of DePIN projects, physical work proof plays a crucial role, and various attack scenarios and corresponding countermeasures exist accordingly.
DePIN projects rely on blockchain to distribute incentives and allocate tokens. Similar to the public-private key system in traditional public chains, the identity verification process of DePIN devices also requires the use of public and private keys. The private key is used to generate and sign "physical work proofs," while the public key is used by the outside world to verify these proofs or serve as the identity tag (Device ID) of the hardware device.
In addition, it is not convenient to directly receive token rewards at the device's on-chain address. Therefore, DePIN projects often deploy a smart contract on-chain, which records the on-chain account addresses of different device holders, similar to a one-to-one or one-to-many relationship in a database. With this approach, the token rewards that off-chain physical devices should receive can be directly sent to the on-chain accounts of the device holders.
In the field of DePIN, anti-sybil can be attributed to "raising the cost of generating physical work proofs." Since the generation of physical work proofs depends on valid device identity information (private keys), simply raising the cost of obtaining identity information can prevent certain low-cost cheating behaviors that generate a large number of work proofs.
To achieve the above goals, a relatively effective solution is to allow DePIN device manufacturers to monopolize the generation permission of identity information, customize the devices, and input unique identity tags for each device. This is similar to having a government agency record the identity information of all citizens, and only those whose information can be found in the government agency's database are eligible to receive government subsidies. |
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Post time 26-3-2024 23:40:23