Systems and methods for non-parallelised mining on a proof-of-work blockchain network

A blockchain network comprising a plurality of nodes, wherein each node in the blockchain network comprises:

• a processor;
• and memory including executable instructions that, as a result of execution by the processor, causes the blockchain network to perform the computer-implemented steps of:
• mining the block of blockchain transactions, wherein the block comprises:
• i) a set S of N blockchain transactions, where the set S is agreed by blockchain network nodes on a blockchain network;
• and ii) a proof-of-computation solution for the block of blockchain transactions that has been calculated as an output of a non-parallelisable algorithm that has been provided with inputs, the inputs comprising:
• a computational difficulty parameter which influences or controls a number of operations required by the non-parallelisable algorithm to calculate the output;
• a hash of at least one blockchain transaction;
• and/or a hash of at least one blockchain block header.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon executable instructions that, as a result of being executed by a processor of a computer system, cause the computer system to perform the computer-implemented steps of:

• mining the block of blockchain transactions, wherein the block comprises:
• i) a set S of N blockchain transactions, where the set S is agreed by blockchain network nodes on a blockchain network;
• and
• ii) a proof-of-computation solution for the block of blockchain transactions that has been calculated as an output of a non-parallelisable algorithm that has been provided with inputs, the inputs comprising:
• a computational difficulty parameter which influences or controls a number of operations required by the non-parallelisable algorithm to calculate the output;
• a hash of at least one blockchain transaction;
• and/or a hash of at least one blockchain block header.