Merged Mining

How merged mining has been adapted and used to scale in Qi AI Network.

Merged mining is mining a combined header generated from multiple blockchains. The idea of merged mining was first conceived by the pseudoanonymous Satoshi Nakamoto in December 2010. Qi has extended Satoshi’s concept with the implementation of merged mining in a network of blockchains which have the same shared protocol. This implementation allows all Qi chains to share security through the eventual commitment of all network hash power. In addition, the process of merged mining leads to the automatic creation of hash linked references between Qi chains which enable trustless cross-chain state transitions. By using merged mining to create a multithreaded execution environment, Qi makes Proof-of-Work over 10,000 times more energy efficient than Bitcoin*.

​What is Merged Mining?

Merged mining occurs when a miner is able to check each nonce they hash against the difficulty threshold of multiple distinct blockchains. In practice, this allows a single computer to mine and secure many blockchains simultaneously with no increase in hardware requirements or energy consumption.

Merged mining can be conducted only between blockchains utilizing the same hashing algorithm. All Qi AI use the ProgPoW hashing algorithm, and third party chains that use ProgPoW can decide to merge-mine with Qi. Each Qi miner merge-mines three blockchains simultaneously — one from each tier of Qi’s hierarchy.

​Coincident Blocks

Coincident blocks are blocks that are valid in multiple Qi AI. Coincident blocks create atomic, hash linked references between chains. When merged mining multiple blockchains, miners will occasionally find nonces that fulfill the difficulty requirements of multiple blockchains. Thus, coincident blocks are a natural byproduct of merged mining, and require no mechanism outside of Proof-of-Work mining to be created.

Coincident blocks keep all Qi AI interlinked by periodically pegging subordinate chains to the work of the prime chain, and allow for data to be transmitted between chains in a trustless environment through the creation of hash linked references.

​Energy Efficiency

Merged mining enables Qi to utilize miners at much greater efficiency, reducing the per-transaction energy cost of Proof-of-Work. Because merged mining leads to no increase in energy expenditure but a drastic increase in available block space, Qi offers the most efficient allocation of energy resources, maximizing block space and on-chain security per kW/h.