How it works

In ENTROPY, miners generate 64 bits of random information at an average of once per hour. These 64 bits are passed to an oracle that measures the randomness of the information and rewards miners with a share of tokens minted in the current epoch. Theoretically, the measure of entropy for $N$ bits of information $x_i$, $i = 1,\dots,N$, is given by:

$-\sum_i p_i\log(p_i) + (1-p_i)\log(1-p_i)$

where $p_i$ is the probability that bit $i$ is equal to one. If, for every bit, there is an equal chance that it be one or zero, the entropy of $N$ bits is equal to $N$. Therefore, in the ENTROPY network, miners generate 64 bits of entropy every hour on average.

The 64-bit message is sent at random intervals $T_k$, whose length is a random variable governed by an exponential probability density function:

$P(T_k = t) = \lambda e^{-\lambda t},~t \geq 0$

where $\lambda$ is equal to an hour. The choice of exponential distribution has been made due to its memorylessness property:

$P(T_k = t+u ~|~ T_k > u) = P(T_k = t),~t,u \geq 0$

which allows the miner to "re-roll" its wait time without affecting the long-run distribution. Assuming disconnections last less than a few minutes, this gives miners the benefit of being able to temporarily disconnect from the network almost without penalty and can be useful in the case of temporary loss of power or Internet connection.