Solution to Security issue: There are many ways for nodes to protect their private key. One way is to use a CONIKS system which is a key management system. How CONIKS works is that each user is given a public key. When the user sends a message CONIKS checks the user’s key with two verifications. The first verification is that the key being used by the receiver and is the same key that other users would use. Then CONIKS checks if that key has been changed recently and unexpectedly. This system provides safety such that any user would not need to handle the security themselves. Another way to be secure for blockchains is certificates. Certificates would are needed to verify outsiders as trustworthy sources. Certificates are given out from large online authorities to third-parties to verify their security as a party to communicate with. Certificates are not needed to communicate within the blockchain as ideally everyone in the blockchain is already trusted and certificates would only slow down the system. Certificates can work as a solution but the problem with certificates is that they are known to fail identity checks, and therefore they are not foolproof. There have been times in which malicious users have obtained certificates to trick systems into believing they are a trusted party and complete a one-time attack. Certificates pose a solution but can still be a threat. Overall confidentiality is the characteristic that blockchains struggle the most on. The way blockchains are structured gives them heavy protections of availability and integrity, but it is this structure that also leaves blockchains to be vulnerable to their confidentiality. It is a lot easier for an attacker to impersonate and steal the private key one person than it is for an attacker to do the same for more than half of the entire system.

Another solution is regulation. Since one problem of the technology is lack of governing regulation. If blockchain technology were to be properly regulated then that would create some sort of standards and rules without compromising on its integrity of an already established peer-to-peer system, like one that could solve the security of losing your private key to access your assets. Regulating this technology can help create a way to centralize the private keys of each system. Blockchain technology should be prioritized and focused on in order to streamline its system for better use, since the pros of using blockchain are far better than the cons, and since it has its many drawbacks to it design, blockchain technology should only be used pending certain situations. Nevertheless, we should consider the pros of blockchain technology implemented in our current infrastructure.

Solution to energy consumption; expensive: Bitcoin Mining can change its internal hardware to energy-efficient technology to use less energy when mining overnight.  A way that these machines can use less energy is by using better internal components and updated chips. In an article, the author said “Earlier CPUs were used to mine blocks which were slow and used more power. So, GPUs are used now, which calculates nearly 100 times faster than possible with a CPU and uses less energy comparatively.” With this new advancement, bitcoin mining machines are now able to use less energy by using chips that will be GPU intense instead of CPU intense. With the chip being GPU fortified, it will not strain the machine when doing hard tasks, while solving algorithms and trying to solve puzzles to mine for the bitcoin and add to the ledger.

         Another solution can be to lower the bound of energy being used with mining and the hash rate. Within the blockchain, the mining machines are computing and solving problems and algorithms. If a lower bound of energy is expected, then it can be used to lower the energy consumption from within. The author mentions “More specifically, a lower bound on energy

consumption can be determined through the observable hash rate (the complexity of the computational puzzle is public, and so is the number of solutions presented in the form of new blocks, so the expected compute power can be derived easily) and the most energy-efficient mining hardware on the market.” [2]. This means that with a lower bound of energy and with a new internal chip placed inside bitcoin mining machines, blockchain technology would be able to run more smoothly and would not consume so much energy as it did before.

Embrace Pre-Mining. Some cryptocurrencies have added pre-mining, a mechanism that functions similarly to fiat currency or stocks, to prevent the excessive computing necessary in swiftly solving math problems to earn the digital coins. An authority, such as the United States government or a company (in the instance of stocks), creates a specific amount of an item and then carefully releases it into the economy based on what is going on in the world or their business. The same is true for pre-mined cryptos. Transactions are verified with the help of a decentralized network of validators before being added to the currency’s blockchain record in these systems.

Transitioning Bitcoin to a proof-of-stake or pre-mined system would be difficult: To fundamentally alter the Bitcoin protocol, someone would have to persuade the majority of miners to agree to the new system, which is a tall order when billions are at stake.

Transition to Proof-of-Stake Systems. According to eToro bitcoin market expert Simon Peters, cryptocurrency could evolve away from proof-of-work systems and toward “proof-of-stake” systems, which don’t require the same mad dash to solve hard riddles. Simply put, proof-of-stake requires miners to put up a tiny quantity of bitcoin in exchange for a chance to validate transactions in a lottery. Proof-of-stake systems conserve energy by removing the competitive computational element of proof-of-work, allowing each machine in a PoS system to focus on one problem at a time. So as an example, the energy usage of Ethereum-based cryptos and blockchains will be reduced by 99.5 percent as a result of this.

Switch to Renewable Energy: Renewable energy currently accounts for around 39% of proof-of- work mining. So perhaps the simplest approach to a green future for Blockchain is to just increase that figure. Countless firms have sprung up to fill this need, each aiming to find new methods to infuse Bitcoin with more ecologically friendly energy. Take, for example, Hong Kong-based LiquidStack, which tries to reduce the temperature of mining rigs more efficiently, or Genesis Mining in Iceland, which only employs renewable energy sources.

Solution to regulation: A solution to this is for regulators to come forward and call for a standard in using the system. Certain Jurisdictions, regulators are required to move away from the use of detailed and perspective rules and use stated principles that create standards which will allow industry to operate in. This can allow regulation to be flexible enough to still allow a peer-to-peer system and also, allow a user to use Blockchain effectively and efficiently. That way, the system would be less compromised without compromising or commandeering the freedom that the system already offers. Regulators should be able to work closely with participants and ensure that their viewpoints are acceptable to industry practices. In the article, “One opportunity to adapt regulatory compliance to distributed ledge technology could be the use of regulatory sandboxes”, [1]. This means that regulators can gain an understanding of how blockchain systems operate and cooperate with the industry to identify and develop new methods for compliance. This action can benefit regulators and allow them to develop a level of regulation that will enable innovation while providing protections for users.

A secondary solution is to adapt regulatory compliance into existing regulatory principles to the blockchain environment. Regulators will want to have a centralized system that make easy regulatory supervision. France has created some regulation about privacy issues within permissionless systems. The regulation were stated as the following, “those actively inputting data into the system, and not mere “modes” or “miners” providing verification of transaction to the platform- are responsible as data controllers”.[1]. This allows introduce a balance in the public interest in large scale “trustless” systems and it will also ensure meaningful accountability for privacy and personal data practices. This is an example of adapting compliance into regulation into blockchain systems.

Some recommendations that we came up with after reviewing the articles is that bitcoin mining machines can be replaced with updated with faster and energy-efficient chips. This will make the mining machines faster and compute tasks, solve algorithms, and put transactions on the ledger quickly. We also recommend using mining machines in an area where there is a lot of energy and use technology that is energy efficient. By solving the problem of cleaner, self-sustaining energy, we can eliminate this problem of blockchains.