If we compare hashing speed and security to price and performance, even a “best-buy” label doesn’t do BLAKE2b justice. In the case of Blockchain, faster transaction times contribute to security. Because of it’s superior performance, many projects and even Blockchain giants are either considering it’s implementation or actively trying to migrate from their existing solution.

It’s predecessor, BLAKE2 came to prominence as one of the five contestants to reach the final round of the N.I.S.T. competition for an upgrade over the previous SHA-2 standard. As there are no identifiable weaknesses in comparison to Keccak, the winner, BLAKE2b is actually gaining wider acceptance than it’s rival as efficiency seems to prevail.

Hashing 101

Hashing plays two primary roles in Blockchain technology — ensuring data integrity and conformity. The first confirms the source of the information being transferred and they haven’t been altered during the process.

Security through “mixing” (where the term itself derives from, as one of it’s synonyms) data by logical operations and compression. The last contributes to faster transfer rates and added security, while the entire method falls into the domain of cryptography.

BLAKE2b Performance

BLAKE2b is a variant of BLAKE2, optimised for 64-bit processor, single-core usage. In this environment, it reaches a throughput of nearly 1 TB/s, with even faster speeds on multi-core processors. This makes it the fastest algorithm available for general purposes, which stands for mass usage with no room for error.

The BLAKE2b powered Phaeton Blockchain transaction speed of 1 million p/s is unrivalled by any with it’s supported features:

• Smart Contract
• Distributed Apps (Dapps)
• Side Chains

BLAKE2b is based on the ChaCha stream cipher family, which aims to increase speed by fewer mixing rounds. While integrating data compression is assumed to lower security, with Blockchain, the blank spaces being discarded contribute to performance and make the original message unrecoverable.

For Phaeton’s case, this is the perfect match from both a practical and security standpoint. The Phaeton Blockchain gets it’s stability from an abundance of nodes which confirm transactions and keep data records. As BLAKE2b works best on single-core, widely-adopted processors, node holders are able to make use of free cloud infrastructure instances.

Tech savvy users who vouch for their perimeter security can run local nodes can restrict their resources to one CPU core, contribute with optimal performance and run an instance with resources to spare.

Security

To expand upon how BLAKE2b accompanies performance with security, we only need to look at the nature of Blockchain technology. Transaction data is added to the Blockchain on an ongoing basis across a wide network of nodes which act as it’s support layer.

The hashing algorithm is irreversible, with any attempt for a security breach on BLAKE2b having the same chance as a brute-force attack. On this note, the magnitude of the attack or higher resources being used doesn’t contribute to a higher level of exploits. In this scenario, time is of the essence, which essentially means mounting a successful attack on Phaeton, where transactions occur in near real-time is virtually impossible.

In comparison, Bitcoin uses two rounds of the now deprecated SHA-256 (SHA2 standard) to prevent length extension. Even with good timing, a transaction takes a whopping 78 minutes.

BLAKE2b has a built-in length extension prevention mechanism. The new SHA3 standard was chosen for governmental use primarily due to it’s compatibility with their existing hashing-specific hardware, namely ASIC computers.

As DPoS is also implemented in Phaeton along BLAKE2b, there is no need for expensive, specialised hardware.

BLAKE2b is not susceptible to Blockchain common attacks:

• Ability to be indifferent
  An on-watcher can only see information designed for public view, where emulating the algorithm for the purpose of finding one’s private key or message content is futile

• Collision Multiplication
  Eliminating the chance of randomly generating the same public address of a user

• Length Extension
  Deriving the input from the output is impossible with BLAKE2b in Phaeton

In conclusion, BLAKE2b is a major attribute in making the Phaeton Blockchain affordable for Smart Contracts and DApps deployment, medium — large scale operations and fast cryptocurrency trading and transfers. Active participants supporting the network will increase profit independent of their electricity costs due to it’s efficiency as Phaeton scales.