Merge Mine

Written by Aidan Mott

Introduction

Merge Mining Is a process that facilitates simultaneous mining of two independent blockchains, allowing in part for blockchains with lower hash power to be secured by the hashing power and network security of larger blockchains.

Merge Mining was first supported by the cryptocurrency Namecoin. Namecoin implemented merge mining as a response to the problem of altcoins being relatively less secure than Bitcoin due to the fact that majority of mining hardware was developed and targeted towards the Bitcoin network. Instead of attempting to get Bitcoin miners to switch over to the Namecoin network, merge mining allows for miners to mine on both networks at the same time. Merge Mining is made up of a Parent blockchain, in the Bitcoin Namecoin example Bitcoin is the Parent blockchain, and an Auxillary blockchain Namecoin being the Auxiallty Blockchain. The Merge Mining process is formally known as AuxPOW ( Auxiliary Proof of work).

During the Merge Mining process both blockchains remain independent, the mining process is the only “merged” process between the two blockchains. The miner, when engaged in AuxPOW, submits the hash to both blockchains. If the submitted hash solves the target difficulty for either blockchain the block is submitted with an adaptation that satisfies the protocol for the selected blockchain. The adaptations for the parent blockchain are very minuscule and include very little data from the auxiliary chain, whereas the adapted block from the blockchain contains the block header from the parent blockchain as the header serves as an indication of the proof of work securing the chain.

Suggested Reading

Taking a Deep Dive into Merged Mining by Alexei Zamyatin

How does merge mining work by Bitcoin StackExchange

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