Cluster-Driven CA Selection Space Optimization in Blockchain with POA for Trust Calculation

Blockchain technology has gained prominence because of its features and characteristics, such as transparency, immutability, and decentralization. However, choosing an appropriate CA for authenticating these transactions is one of the major issues, especially in a larger network. Mechanisms like PoW and PoS suffer from very high computational costs, significant energy wastage, and scalability problems. While simple, centralized CA systems contradict the decentralized principles of blockchain and present with single points of failure. In large networks, this selection process is very long when working with such a large number of nodes, thereby increasing the transaction processing times and the overall inefficiency of the systems. To address the above challenges, the current research aims to implement the K-Means++ clustering algorithm with the Elbow and Silhouette methods as internal validation methods to define the number of clusters in the network. In addition, the current work also aims to define a new trust calculation mechanism using a Proof of Authority (PoA) consensus mechanism, depending on which node will become the CA. Gas utilization becomes an effective measure of efficacy.