A more efficient way to mine Bitcoin: Allow for errors

Abstract: Bitcoin mining difficulty is adjusted according to the time required to mine a Bitcoin block. As mining becomes more and more difficult, individual miners have long disappeared, leaving only mining pools using industrial mining machines to maintain the operation of the Bitcoin network. Now, a study led by Dr. Rakesh Kumar of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has found a way to mine Bitcoin more efficiently: mining machines are allowed to make occasional mistakes.

Errors generated by the miners will not corrupt the blockchain and can be easily identified and removed by the Bitcoin network, but mining revenue will increase by more than 30% . They published a paper ( PDF ) proposing a similar hardware design for a miner that is faster, smaller, more cost-effective and more efficient.

The researchers have no intention of creating new mining machines, but rather hope that companies that produce mining machines will benefit from their research.