Transaction system and method of operation thereof

Abstract

There is provided a transaction system that includes a plurality of computing nodes that are mutually interconnected via a data communication network to exchange encrypted data therebetween. The transaction system employs a blockchain whose entries are recorded in a ledger. A directed acyclic graph (DAG) is utilized for defining relationships between blocks of the blockchain. The DAG comprises a plurality of proposed solutions to problems posed in the one or more smart contracts. Each of the one or more smart contracts includes machine-readable elements including at least one of: a data specification, an initial mining algorithm, an objective function for scoring the plurality of proposed solutions. The transaction system operates to cause the DAG to store temporary data and/or extended algorithm code used during an execution of a given transaction, wherein the temporary data and/or extended algorithm code stored in the DAG is to be removed once the execution of the given transaction is complete, further wherein the temporary data and/or extended algorithm code stored in the DAG is to be modified in response to new solutions arising during operation of the transaction system. The transaction system operates to accommodate a given smart contract defining a problem that is to be solved, giving a plurality of parties of the transaction system an opportunity to receive consideration when the problem is solved, and wherein the consideration is a quantity representing at least one of: an access to data storage, an access to data memory, an access to data communication system bandwidth, access to data communication channels or ports, data processor energy use, data processor energy dissipation, an access time taken by data processing resources during transactions, heat generation in computing hardware, cooling energy applied to computing hardware or any other measure associated with one or more CPU cycles.