Bram Cohen came up with a new approach for mining ... on hard drives!

BitTorrent developer Bram Cohen has published new technical documentation, which provides an environmentally friendly alternative to the computing process, which is involved in the energy-intensive bitcoin mining.

The method, called the "space proof", relies on disk space, and not on processing power as the main resource for mining (the process by which new transactions are added to the block system). This is an environmentally safe and more economical alternative instead of the usual proof-of-work (proof of work).

In March Cohen asked for help in the development of CoinDesk, which resulted in the release of white paper this week.

The document with the long title "Beyond Hellman's Time-Memory ..." sets out the use of "proof of space" to create a mining process that requires less energy (and natural resources for its production). Due to the reduction in energy requirements, as well as the use of pre-existing hardware, the proposed method is aimed at ensuring the availability of mining for any user with a computer.

As explained in the document:

"The idea is to use disk space as the main resource for mining - instead of mining calculations. Since millions of users have a significant amount of unused disk space (on laptops, etc.), using this space to ensure the work of the blocking system will result in a "zero" waste of resources. "

In the system of "proof of space", miners allocate a part of their unused disk space for the network: the probability of successful block mining is proportional to the amount of allocated disk space and inversely proportional to the total network bandwidth.

In addition to Cohen, white paper thanks as authors: Hamza Abulal, Joel Alwen and Krzysztof Pietrzak from the Institute of Science and Technology of Austria, Danilo Hilko of ENS Paris and Leonid Reizin of Boston University.

However, it remains to be seen whether the document will serve as a basis for the creation of a new crypto currency, although Cohen said in March CoinDesk that he does not see the need to create a new one.

"Rather, there should not be a need [to launch new coins]," he said, adding:

"But I have a new basic idea for mining."