深入了解 Helium 的去中心化机器网络

物联网是一个价值 8000 亿美元的产业，拥有超过 84 亿台联网设备，预计到 2021 年支出将达到近 1.4 万亿美元 [1]。这些设备中的大多数都需要连接到 Internet 才能运行。然而，当前的解决方案（如蜂窝、WiFi 和蓝牙）并不理想：它们太贵、太耗电或范围太有限。

Helium 是一个分散的机器网络，它使世界上任何地方的机器都可以无线连接到互联网并进行地理定位，而无需耗电的卫星定位硬件或昂贵的蜂窝计划。为网络提供动力的是一个带有原生协议代币的区块链，它激励了覆盖提供者和覆盖消费者之间的双边市场。

• We present a computationally inexpensive Proof-of-Coverage that allows miners to prove they are providing wireless network coverage. We anchor these proofs using a Proof-of-Serialization that allows miners to prove they are accurately representing time relative to others on the network in a cryptographically secure way.

• We demonstrate an entirely new purposebuilt blockchain network built to service the Wireless Protocol and provide a system for authenticating and identifying machines, providing cryptographic guarantees of data transmission and authenticity, offer transaction primitives designed around the wireless protocol, and more

• We present a novel consensus protocol construction that creates a permissionless, high throughput, censor-resistant system by combining an asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerant protocol with identities presented via Proof-of-Coverage.