Proof-of-Pedal - Pedal-Powered Byzantine Green Consensus for Blockchain.

Blockchain technologies have gained significant popularity for their decentralized and tamper-evident characteristics. The key component of these technologies is the consensus protocol that dictates the correctness and operational efficiency of the system. Bitcoin’s Proof of Work(PoW) is one such widely used promising consensus protocol. The major concern of the PoW consensus is the harm it does to the environment. It consumes a large amount of electricity and produces a high carbon footprint on the environment. In this paper, we propose "Proof-of-Pedal(PoP)", a novel Byzantine consensus protocol to address these major environmental issues in PoW. The proposed PoP consensus protocol is designed to replace the computer energy in PoW with human energy, specifically calories generated through cycling. It has been implemented on Pedalchain(also referred to as Greenchain), a novel blockchain system and support for both public and permissioned environments. The PoP consensus protocol represents a variation of Proof-of-Stake (PoS), employing PedalCoin cryptocurrency tokens as the staking mechanism for block miners. The protocol facilitates applications that allocate Pedalcoins to individuals as rewards for their cycling activities and the subsequent reduction in carbon emissions achieved through those activities. In the Pedalchain blockchain, individual activities and corresponding carbon footprint scores are securely recorded as transactions, resulting in automatic credit of Pedalcoins to the respective individuals. To ensure privacy while capturing Cycling activity and carbon footprint data, we have developed ClimGuards, a mobile application enabled with Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) technology. The system also incorporates a feature that allows users to spend their Pedalcoins at a variety of businesses, including sports stores, hotels, restaurants, and more, while unlocking special offers. Moreover, the scalability of the system enables its potential extension to diverse applications. Through this approach, our aim is to incentivize cycling using an innovative cryptocurrency application and contribute to the promotion of a healthier nation.