We argue that the current POW based consensus algorithm of the Bitcoin network suffers from a fundamental economic discrepancy between the real world transaction (txn) costs incurred by miners and the wealth that is being transacted. Put simply, whether one transacts 1 satoshi or 1 bitcoin, the same amount of electricity is needed when including this txn into a block. The notorious Bitcoin blockchain problems such as its high energy usage per txn or its scalability issues are, either partially or fully, mere consequences of this fundamental economic inconsistency. We propose making the computational cost of securing the txns proportional to the wealth being transferred, at least temporarily. First, we present a simple incentive based model of Bitcoin's security. Then, guided by this model, we augment each txn by two parameters, one controlling the time spent securing this txn and the second determining the fraction of the network used to accomplish this. The current Bitcoin txns are naturally embedded into this parametrized space. Then we introduce a sequence of hierarchical block structures (HBSs) containing these parametrized txns. The first of those HBSs exploits only a single degree of freedom of the extended txn, namely the time investment, but it allows already for txns with a variable level of trust together with aligned network fees and energy usage. In principle, the last HBS should scale to tens of thousands timely txns per second while preserving what the previous HBSs achieved. We also propose a simple homotopy based transition mechanism which enables us to relatively safely and continuously introduce new HBSs into the existing blockchain. Our approach is constructive and as rigorous as possible and we attempt to analyze all aspects of these developments, al least at a conceptual level. The process is supported by evaluation on recent transaction data.

翻译：摘要：我们论证，当前基于工作量证明（POW）的比特币网络共识算法存在一个根本性的经济矛盾：矿工所承担的现实世界交易成本与被交易财富之间的失衡。简言之，无论交易1聪还是1比特币，将该交易纳入区块所需消耗的电量相同。臭名昭著的比特币区块链问题（例如每笔交易的高能耗或可扩展性瓶颈），其部分或全部根源均可追溯至这一根本性的经济不一致性。我们提议使保障交易安全的计算成本至少暂时与所转移财富成比例。首先，我们提出一个基于激励的比特币安全简化模型。随后在该模型指导下，通过两个参数扩展每笔交易：一个参数控制保障该交易所花费的时间，另一个参数决定用于实现此目标的网络节点比例。当前比特币交易可自然嵌入此参数化空间。接着，我们引入包含这些参数化交易的层级区块结构序列。首个HBS仅利用扩展交易中的单一自由度（即时间投入），但已能实现具有可变信任水平的交易，同时匹配相应的网络费用与能耗。原则上，最后的HBS在保持前序HBS成果的同时，应能扩展至每秒处理数万笔即时交易。我们还提出基于同伦的简单过渡机制，使其能够相对安全且渐进地将新型HBS引入现有区块链。我们的方法具有建构性并力求严谨，试图在概念层面分析这些发展中的所有方面。该过程已通过近期交易数据评估验证。