The bitcoin network is a peer-to-peer payment network that operates on a cryptographic protocol. Users send and receive bitcoins, the units of currency, by broadcasting digitally signed messages to the network using bitcoin cryptocurrency wallet software. Transactions are recorded into a distributed, replicated public database known as the blockchain, with consensus achieved by a proof-of-work system called mining. Satoshi Nakamoto, the designer of bitcoin claimed that design and coding of bitcoin began in 2007. The project was released in 2009 as open source software. The network requires the minimal structure to share transactions. An ad hoc decentralized network of volunteers is sufficient. Messages are broadcast on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will. Upon reconnection, a node downloads and verifies new blocks from other nodes to complete its local copy of the blockchain. A bitcoin is defined by a sequence of digitally signed transactions that began with the bitcoin's creation, as a block reward. The owner of a bitcoin transfers it by digitally signing it over to the next owner using a bitcoin transaction, much like endorsing a traditional bank check. A payee can examine each previous transaction to verify the chain of ownership. Unlike traditional check endorsements, bitcoin transactions are irreversible, which eliminates the risk of chargeback fraud. Although it is possible to handle bitcoins individually, it would be unwieldy to require a separate transaction for every bitcoin in a transaction. Transactions are therefore allowed to contain multiple inputs and outputs, allowing bitcoins to be split and combined. Common transactions will have either a single input from a larger previous transaction or multiple inputs combining smaller amounts, and one or two outputs: one for the payment, and one returning the change, if any, to the sender. Any difference between the total input and output amounts of a transaction goes to miners as a transaction fee. In 2013, Mark Gimein estimated electricity consumption to be about 40.9 megawatts (982 megawatt-hours a day). In 2014, Hass McCook estimated 80.7 megawatts (80,666 kW). As of 2015, The Economist estimated that even if all miners used modern facilities, the combined electricity consumption would be 166.7 megawatts (1.46 terawatt-hours per year). To lower the costs, bitcoin miners have set up in places like Iceland where geothermal energy is cheap and cooling Arctic air is free. Chinese bitcoin miners are known to use hydroelectric power in Tibet to reduce electricity costs. Various potential attacks on the bitcoin network and its use as a payment system, real or theoretical, have been considered. The bitcoin protocol includes several features that protect it against some of those attacks, such as unauthorized spending, double spending, forging bitcoins, and tampering with the blockchain. Other attacks, such as theft of private keys, require due care by users.
FOAM is an open protocol for proof of location on Ethereum. Our mission is to build a consensus driven map of the world, empowering a fully decentralized web3 economy with verifiable location data. FOAM incentivizes the infrastructure needed for privacy-preserving and fraud-proof location verification. The starting point for FOAM is static proof of location, where a community of Cartographers curate geographic Points of Interest on the FOAM map. Through global community-driven efforts, FOAM’s dynamic proof of location protocol will enable a permissionless and privacy-preserving network of radio beacons that is independent from external centralized sources and capable of providing secure location verification services. FOAM Token Functionality 1. Add and Curate Geographic Points of Interest The FOAM Spatial Index Visualizer allows Cartographers to participate in interactive TCR POIs on a map. Users can add points to the map, validate new candidates and verify the map by visiting real world locations. The FOAM Token Curated Registry unlocks mapping in a secure and permissionless fashion and allows locations to be ranked and maintained by token balances. Users can deposit FOAM Tokens into POIs on the map to increase attention those POIs might receive. 2. Signal for Zone Incentivisation A further potential use of the FOAM Token by Cartographers is to stake their FOAM Tokens to Signal. Signaling is a mechanism designed to allow Cartographers to incentivize the expansion and geographic coverage of the FOAM network. To Signal, a Cartographer stakes FOAM Tokens to a Signaling smart contract by reference to a particular area. These staked tokens serve as indicators of demand, and are proportionate to (i) the length of time staking (the earlier, the better), and (ii) the number of tokens staked (the less well-served areas, the better). In the context of the contingent Dynamic Proof of Location concept (described further in the Product Whitepaper), these indicators are the weighted references that determine the spatial mining rewards. 3. Contribute to Potential Secure Location Services as Zone Anchor or Verifier The FOAM protocol may allow users to provide work and secure localization services and location verification for smart contracts and be rewarded for their own efforts with new FOAM Tokens in the form of mining rewards. Devices and real world contracts can be programmed to designate attestations and track interactions and transactions on the map. With the addition of necessary radio hardware by individual users and the grass roots expansion of the FOAM network, it may be possible for location status to be proved in a different manner. Location could be proved through a time synchronization protocol that would ensure continuity of a distributed clock, whereby specialized hardware could synchronize nodes’ clocks over radio to provide location services in a given area. As explained further in the following paragraph, this ‘Dynamic Proof of Location’ is contingent on a number of factors outside of Foamspace’s control.