Energy Efficient Consensus Mechanisms: A Comparative Study of Proof of Stake Variants for Iot Edge Blockchains

Abstract

Abstract: IoT edge deployments require ultra low power consensus yet must resist Sybil and network partition attacks. This comparative study benchmarks Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS), Verifiable Random Function based PoS (VRF PoS), and Federated Byzantine Agreement (FBA) across Raspberry?Pi clusters simulating sensor gateways. Metrics include watt hour consumption per confirmed transaction, adversarial fork probability, and latency under 20?% packet loss. VRF PoS achieved the best energy profile (0.42?Wh/tx) while keeping fork rates below 0.03?%, thanks to unpredictable leader selection. DPoS excelled in raw speed but revealed centralisation risks when delegate churn exceeded 15?%. FBA offered deterministic finality under partitions but consumed 2.3× more energy due to intricate quorum intersection checks. Policy recommendations outline hybrid designs that rotate algorithms based on battery reserve and network quality.

Keywords: Proof of Stake, IoT Blockchain, Energy Efficiency, Federated Byzantine Agreement, Edge Computing.