Too Long; Didn't Read
When reading about <a href="https://hackernoon.com/tagged/bitcoin" target="_blank">Bitcoin</a> or other <a href="https://hackernoon.com/tagged/blockchain" target="_blank">blockchain</a> technologies, the phrases <em>Proof-of-Work</em> and <em>Proof-of-Stake</em> are often mentioned. In the case of Bitcoin, Proof-of-Work as one of the reasons for its astronomical energy consumption. These “Proof” algorithms are used by cryptocurrency networks to reach a consensus of the current state of their respective blockchains in a process called mining. Put simply, mining is the process in which a group of unaffiliated, distributed transaction processors validate the transactions that have taken place on the network. Before I get into Burst and what its <em>Proof-of-Work</em> Algorithm means and why it’s significant, I will describe what these other “Proof” algorithms mean and how they came to be.