BCSimMP: A Blockchain Simulator with Mining Pool

Abstract

A blockchain network is a collection of nodes that are interconnected with each other. One of the toughest tasks on these nodes is as a mining node. Playing an active role as a node miner in a blockchain network requires enormous resources, especially on blockchain networks that implement Proof-of-work consensus. Solo miners will get an enormous reward but require hardware resources with very high computing capabilities. Therefore, the pool miner approach or miners who work in groups will have more benefit because the group will jointly support the very high computational needs. However, the rewards that each miner node will obtain will be adjusted based on the contribution made. This paper presents a mining pool simulator for blockchain applications called BCSimMP (a Blockchain Simulator with Mining Pool). BCSimMP simulates using Proof-of-Work consensus and also simulates a group of miners (pool miners) working together to solve the existing puzzle to generate a block. The simulator is using the multiprocessing mechanism in Python. In addition, leading-zero is used as a puzzle to solve during block-time generation. The share reward for each participant node miner and a special reward for a miner that can solve the puzzle. Our application shows the mining process carried out by miners in groups compare to a solo miner. The user can initially set the number of node users, the number of tasks/transactions per block, the number of node miners, and the difficulty level for the target puzzle. The reward given for successfully generating blocks on this application is distributed proportionally to all miners in the group. With this BCSimMP, users can learn how the mining pool works and the mechanism of the rewards obtained before deciding to join as a miner in the blockchain network.