Proof of Work: email versus bitcoin

Question

I have read

"Hashcash is a proof-of-work algorithm that requires a selectable amount of work to compute, but the proof can be verified efficiently. For email uses, a textual encoding of a hashcash stamp is added to the header of an email to prove the sender has expended a modest amount of CPU time calculating the stamp prior to sending the email. In other words, as the sender has taken a certain amount of time to generate the stamp and send the email, it is unlikely that they are a spammer. " (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash)

Then, in bitcoin, it seems natural that the senders engage in the proof of work instead of miners. Why it is not so?

Answer 1

There are cryptocurrencies that operate like this, for example, I believe Nano requires the proof of work in the transaction itself, see Nano Whitepaper.

Transaction Spam Reduction

Bitcoin, however, instead of using proof of work to reduce transaction spamming, this is prevented with a miner fee. Because miners can select transactions to put in the block they mine, they are incentivized to select transactions with higher fees. Without a decent fee, your transaction may never get mined if the average fees are much higher, so it won't enter a block (thus spamming is reduced).

Proof of Work in Bitcoin

Proof of work is used to achieve consensus. Instead of preventing transaction spamming, you could consider it as a block submission spam prevention. Because a majority of nodes have to validate the blocks and all the transactions in them, you could see how without proof of work, this could be easily spammed and transaction validity could become difficult to prove. See Proof of Work.

Another effect for proof of work in the block is to control the work required to mine a new block, thus regulating the release of Bitcoins. The reasoning behind this in the Bitcoin Whitepaper was:

"To compensate for increasing hardware speed and varying interest in running nodes over time."

Answer 2

Proof of work helps to solve the issue of transaction ordering: miners must create blocks that contain an order of transactions, and each block builds upon the last. Thus all bitcoin transactions are ordered, and this is required in order to resolve any potential transaction conflicts.

As an example: in the case of a double spend, which transaction is actually valid, and which should be discarded? A simple way to resolve this question is to say "the first transaction is valid, the second is not", but this solution requires the network to be in consensus regarding the ordering of all transactions.

In the case of email, ordering of messages is not critically important, so the inclusion of a POW has a slightly different primary function: to increase the cost of sending an email, in order to discourage spam messages.

Then, in bitcoin, it seems natural that the senders engage in the proof of work instead of miners. Why it is not so?

Transaction ordering is important, but keep in mind that it is not trivial to reliably keep a decentralized network in consensus. Each transaction could include a proof-of-work, but this alone is not enough to give the transactions a well-defined order. Proof-of-work establishes a way to ensure resources were spent, but on it's own is not sufficient to establish an ordering of data.

Bitcoin solves this by grouping transactions into blocks, and each block references the one before it. You can imagine this as a sort of 'decentralized clock', where the smallest increment of time is one block. For transactions to function similarly, each transaction would have to reference the one before it, thus establishing an order. This would lead to a whole host of latency issues, higher rates of 'orphan transactions', potential for spam and DOS attacks, etc.