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Publicação
Building a Permissionless Blockchain Based on Proof-Of-Space for Archiving the World Wide Web
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Orientador(es)
Resumo(s)
As technology advances and digital content grows, web archives such as the Wayback Machine and Arquivo.pt face an exponential increase in the volume of websites and data archived, significantly increasing storage and operational costs. A scalable solution to mitigate these expenses is essential. This work investigates how these costs can be mitigated through an incentivebased, permissionless blockchain model. We introduce ArchiveChain, a blockchain system built through Proof-of-Useful-Space (PoUSp) and Proof-of-Time consensus mechanisms, alongside Proof-of-Data-Possession (PDP) primitives, that enable Web Archives to safely outsource data to the blockchain, providing verifiable, secure, and efficient archival of data with rapid accessibility. ArchiveChain aims to enhance energy efficiency and reduce participation costs compared to current blockchain solutions, leveraging the useful Web Archive data as a resource in its consensus rather than random, useless data approaches like those employed by Chia. By incentivizing network participants to archive data through cryptocurrency rewards, ArchiveChain provides a sustainable model that reduces the rising costs of web archiving while enabling broader applications in decentralized systems, including cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, and more. Our prototype achieves a ≈ 97% useful space ratio, significantly outperforming prior Proof-of-Space systems, and ensures proportional voting power to storage allocation, which guarantees fairness and Sybil resistance. ArchiveChain’s compact PoUSp and PDP proofs support scalability, while its decentralized architecture enables faster download speeds and reduced page render times, improving quality of service for web archival systems. This solution offers a viable path for Web Archives to scale with growing data demands, reduce operational costs, and maintain secure, verifiable storage in a trustless environment. This work culminated in the publication ArchiveChain: a Permissionless Blockchain based on Proof-of-Useful-Space for Archiving the World Wide Web at the INForum 2025 Conference, Evora, Portugal, and was further recognized with the ´ Award Arquivo.pt 2025 – DNS.PT, an award highlighting the best academic work.
Descrição
Tese de Mestrado, Engenharia Informática, 2025, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências
Palavras-chave
Blockchain Web Archiving Proof-of-Useful-Space Proof-of-Storage Outsourced storage