2015162

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is upgrading the public’s existing electronic U.S. dollars to match and exceed the capabilities of private cryptocurrencies. Distributed-ledger technology has the potential to transform every sector of the economy, but today’s blockchains require users to purchase specific assets before sending payments or using related applications. This has delayed mainstream adoption of blockchain technology and raised concerns that a transition to decentralized commerce could threaten the value of savings held in traditional currency. The proposed project will develop a new technology for protected digital transactions. This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop a decentralized blockchain that will eliminate the need for cryptocurrencies by allowing the owners of U.S. dollars to unlock fiat-derived tokens at zero cost. By adapting recent advancements in biological signaling theory to computer science, the project aims to advance new methods in distributed computing. It will replace symmetric Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake vote-weighing mechanisms with a new technology, Proof-of-Balance, that can deliver significant enhancements to security and performance. The proposed work will explore application of the formal mathematical models by developing and deploying an operational Proof-of-Balance network. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.