Virtual Proof of Work: How Cellula Simulates Bitcoin Mining to Achieve Fair Asset Distribution

Since the popularity of ERC-20 assets in 2017, Web3 has entered an era of low-threshold asset issuance. Various projects issue tokens or NFTs through methods such as IDO and ICO, but most face issues of strong control or lack of transparency, with frequent occurrences of RugPull.

As of today, the fairness flaws of traditional IDOs and ICOs have been fully exposed. People have been hoping for a more fair and reliable asset issuance protocol to address various issues during the TGE of new projects. Although some innovative projects have proposed "fair economic models", they often lack universal promotion.

So, what kind of model can achieve a fairer and more reliable asset distribution? What solution can serve as a universal protocol? The Cellula introduced in this article provides a new perspective on these issues. They have implemented an asset distribution layer that simulates PoW, using virtual proof of work (vPOW) to "mine" the asset distribution process, simulating Bitcoin to achieve a fairer paradigm of asset allocation.

Although Cellula is often regarded as a Gamefi project, its distributed in-game rewards can be set as any type of Token, theoretically serving as an asset distribution platform with PoW effects, bringing broader prospects for Web3 asset issuance, and can even be referred to as a "social experiment paying tribute to Bitcoin Mining."

PoW and vPoW: Unpredictable Lottery Draws

Whether it's authentic PoW, PoS, or vPoW, the essence is to set up a set of algorithms with unpredictable output results, and conduct a "lottery" through the output results. Bitcoin miners need to construct locally satisfying blocks and submit them to the full nodes in the network for consensus to receive block rewards. The constraint is that the constructed block's Hash must meet specific requirements, such as having a prefix of 6 zeros.

Due to the unpredictable nature of block hash generation results, constructing a qualifying block requires continuously changing input parameters for brute-force enumeration, which places high demands on miners' hardware.

In short, Bitcoin mining achieves a "lottery draw" system for online participation of miners through the unpredictability of the SHA-256 hashing algorithm, ensuring a permissionless form of participation at the cost of electrical energy.

In addition, PoW is a fairer asset distribution method, and the difficulty for project parties to control mainstream PoW public chains is much greater than that of PoS public chains. In many PoS public chains or ICO, IDO schemes, there are numerous cases of strong control by project parties.

The price of Solana coins surged nearly 1000 times from 2019 to 2021 under the manipulation of FTX, and many Solana validator node operators were early investors, obtaining chips at a cost close to 0, which severely undermined the fairness of asset distribution. Although PoW project parties also have control over the market, the extent is often much lighter than that of PoS.

The issue is that the PoW model is usually applied to the underlying public chain rather than the asset issuance layer of DAPPs. If a feasible on-chain solution can simulate the effects of PoW, it could achieve a fairer and more reliable asset distribution protocol than ICOs, IDOs, and the like. Combined with gaming scenarios, interesting Gamefi( can be created. Of course, the actual applications are not limited to games; it can also provide fair asset distribution solutions for other projects).

The key is, how to simulate the PoW effect in on-chain asset issuance? Cellula allocates computing power to the on-chain virtual digital entity ( called "BitLife" by introducing the famous "Conway's Game of Life" algorithm. In simple terms, participants breed clusters of cells in their own Petri dishes, and over time, the more surviving cells in a participant's dish, the higher the converted mining power, and the more likely they are to receive mining rewards.

Cellula has replaced the hash calculation of traditional PoW with a calculation method whose results are difficult to predict, substituting the "Work" form in "Proof of Work". Under the Cellula concept, the key is how to obtain more living cells in the culture dish )BitLife(, and deducing the state changes of BitLife requires the consumption of computational resources. Essentially, it transforms the hash algorithm used in Bitcoin mining into a specific algorithm for deducing Conway's Game of Life, which is referred to as vPOW)Virtual POW(.

![Interpretation of Cellula: A Tribute to the Gamified Asset Issuance Protocol of PoW Mining])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-7c88e7b70b6aeb205470e125f535915f.webp(

The Core of vPOW: Conway's Game of Life and BitLife

Before interpreting the design of the Cellula mechanism, first understand the most important core of vPOW - "Conway's Game of Life". It can be traced back to the "cellular automaton" concept proposed by John von Neumann in 1950. Mathematician John Conway formally proposed "Conway's Game of Life" in 1970, using algorithms to simulate the laws of natural life evolution.

Assume there is a petri dish, divided into small squares by a two-dimensional coordinate system, for "initial setup", allowing living cells to occupy some of the squares. After that, the life and death states of the cells evolve over time, gradually presenting complex forms of cell clusters. This is essentially a two-dimensional grid game with simple rules:

• Each cell has two states: alive or dead, and each cell interacts with the cells in the surrounding eight squares.
• A living cell surrounded by fewer than 2 living cells in the 8 adjacent squares will die.
• There are 2-3 surviving cells around a certain surviving cell, and that cell remains alive.
• More than 3 living cells surrounding a certain living cell will cause that cell to die. ) Simulating too many life forms competing for resources (
• A certain dead cell is surrounded by 3 living cells, and the cell turns into a living cell ) simulating cell proliferation (

Given the initial pattern of cell states in a two-dimensional culture dish, the cell states will continuously evolve and iterate over time according to the above rules, producing a myriad of results. Conway's Game of Life can even simulate computer effects.

The life/death of each cell in the petri dish corresponds to binary 0/1, and the initial state of the cells can be regarded as "input parameters". The life and death of each cell represent the input data, and then the cell states begin to evolve according to the initial pattern. Each round of state changes is equivalent to one operation in the computational process, and the state obtained after a period of time can be viewed as the "output".

As long as the appropriate initial patterns are set, Conway's Game of Life can produce specific results after several generations of evolution. Due to the infinite variations of initial patterns, it can simulate the effect of a lottery draw. Restrictions can be set so that each player randomly selects a batch of initial patterns, and after 100 generations of evolution, the petri dish owners whose results meet specific characteristics are qualified to receive rewards, which is similar to the idea of Bitcoin Mining:

"The system first limits which types of output results meet the requirements, and participants input random initial values into the given algorithm, trying to obtain the output results that meet the requirements." Due to the extremely large number of initial input parameters to be tested, a significant effort must be made to hit the jackpot, which is precisely the logic of PoW: miners must put in a certain amount of work to receive rewards.

![Interpreting Cellula: A Gamified Asset Issuance Protocol Paying Tribute to PoW Mining])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-022dbfaef89cc79b60d30d197dc32d2b.webp(

After understanding the basic concepts of Cellula and Conway's Game of Life, let's look at the specific design details. Cellula divides the "petri dish" into 9*9=81 squares, with each cell in the square having two states: alive/dead, corresponding to binary 0 and 1. Therefore, the initial state of cells in the petri dish has 2^81 combinations, which is equivalent to one trillion squared, basically an astronomical number.

Players need to select the input parameters for the initial mode of the petri dish ). BitLife acts as the entity of the petri dish (, which is actually an NFT ), containing 81 squares, with each square housing a cell ( that can be either in a live or dead state. Empty squares are equivalent to dead cells ). In BitLife, every 3*3=9 adjacent squares form a BitCell, and each BitLife is composed of 2-9 BitCells stitched together (. If the constructed Bitlife has fewer than 9 BitCells and some areas are empty, they are all considered dead cells by default ).

According to the combination and arrangement, BitCell ( 3*3 grid ) has 2^9 initial patterns, and players need to randomly select multiple BitCell combinations of different patterns to construct a BitLife. In short, it means casually finding an initial pattern for their petri dish. As mentioned earlier, there are a total of 2^81 different initial patterns, which is an astronomical number. Therefore, the choice space for participants is extremely large, similar to the scenario of Bitcoin mining using SHA-256.

The cell state of BitLife changes with the increase in block height. Cellula allocates computing power based on the state of BitLife at different block heights. Given a block height, the more living cells a BitLife has, the higher the computing power it possesses, which is equivalent to creating a virtual mining machine.

For example, Cellula participants need to exhaustively explore the 2^81 initial patterns of BitLife off-chain, predict the evolved state of each pattern, and then see if it meets the requirements of the reward system. Assuming the current block height is 800, the system requires that when the block height reaches 1000, the BitLife with the most surviving cells will receive the highest reward. Therefore, the participants' goal is very clear:

At block height 800, obtain a BitLife of a certain pattern, which has more surviving cells than other BitLives at block height 1000.

This is the core gameplay of Cellula, where the goal is to construct or buy the most likely BitLife to earn mining rewards. This model essentially allows ordinary retail investors and advanced retail investors to develop their own mining machines, which can then be sold to others, or they can purchase mining machines from others to mine. When you build your own mining machine, you need to simulate the state evolution of different modes of BitLife off-chain, which will consume computational resources; buying others' mining machines effectively means purchasing BitLife of different initial modes, and you will still need to independently assess the future state changes of these BitLife, so it requires off-chain computation. This is a very interesting aspect of the entire design of the Cellula game.

After understanding the core mechanics of the game, look at other details: In BitLife, live cells can overflow beyond the initial 99 grid, and the number of surviving cells can far exceed 99, with no boundary limitations. If the number of active cells in a BitLife continues to increase, the mining power allocated to it will also increase, while if the initial mode of the BitLife is chosen poorly, the number of live cells will decrease, and the mining power will also drop.

The system distributes a certain mining reward every 5 minutes, referred to as energy points in the game, based on the share of each BitLife's computing power in the network.

In Cellula, the process for players to synthesize BitLife is essentially the process of "manufacturing" new mining machines. BitLife entities are NFTs, and after being minted on the blockchain, they need to undergo a "charging" operation to start mining. The charging is valid for 1 day, 3 days, or 7 days, and a small fee is required. After expiration, charging must be continued.

To encourage users to charge BitLife more, Cellula has set up a "Charging Lottery" feature, which may be selected each time a charging operation is initiated, to receive an additional reward (. This reward is independent of the Mining rewards ). This design will be briefly introduced in the later Analysoor algorithm section.

According to the official Cellula rules, the current BitLife minting, which includes 3*3 Bitcells (, contains 81 small squares ), has stopped. Players have collectively minted over 1.5 million such BitLives. Future new users can purchase BitLife on the secondary market and engage in charging mining. The official explanation for limited minting is to maintain the stability of the game ecosystem and to prevent scientists from endlessly minting BitLife NFTs, which would lead to a decrease in the value of mining machines.

In the future, Cellula will introduce a role similar to that of mining machine manufacturers. This role is based on a licensing system, requiring token staking, public sales channels, and a certain community scale and influence. These manufacturers will be responsible for minting and selling BitLife, which contains 4x4 BitCells, or 16*9=144 small squares. The amount of BitLife that manufacturers can mint will be limited by the amount of tokens they stake.

We have roughly explained the core concepts involved in vPOW in simple terms. vPOW is essentially a computational model based on given rules, where participants can compete by optimizing strategies, engaging in a gamified manner.