Predictable performance of DApps: from application chain to elastic block space

Artela White Paper On June 20, the cutting-edge parallel EVM Layer1 project Artela released the white paper "Full Stack Parallelization", aiming to fully release the scalability of the blockchain and enable DApps to have "predictable performance."

1. Predictable performance

refers to providing predictable TPS for DApps, which is crucial for DApps in specific business scenarios. DApps deployed on public chains are often affected by other DApps competing for blockchain computing power and storage space. In the case of network congestion, it will lead to higher transaction execution costs and delays, restricting the rapid development of DApps.

2. Application chain

In order to solve the problem of "predictable performance", a common approach is to use Application-specific blockchain, also known as Application chain (Appchain ). It dedicates block space to specific applications.

3. Elastic Block Space

Artela proposes the Elastic Block Space (EBS) solution to dynamically adjust block resources according to DApp needs and provide independent expansion for DApps with high demand. block space.

4. Comparison between application chain and elastic block space

This article will introduce application chain and elastic block space respectively, and compare their advantages and disadvantages.

Application Chain

1. Definition: Application Chain is a blockchain created for a single DApp to run.
   

2. Features:

   Build from scratch, customized virtual machine.
   • The network stack (consensus, network, execution) can be customized to meet specific design requirements.
   • Solve the problems of high congestion, high cost, and fixed features.

The form of application chain

3. Monolithic blockchain

   Bitcoin ("digital gold" application chain).
   • Arweave (persistent storage application chain).
   • Celestia (data availability application chain).

4. Multi-chain ecosystem

   • Cosmos:
     Interconnected blockchain world.
     • Quickly develop and launch blockchain (Cosmos SDK).
     • IBC Protocol (Barrier-free Blockchain Interaction).
   • Polkadot:
     The perfect blockchain expansion solution.
     • Parallel chain ecology.
     • Shared security (cross-consensus information).

Derivative forms of application chain

5. Side chain

   Polygon, etc.
   • Improve sidechain experience and performance.

6. Subnet

   Avalanche and more.
   • Improve subnet experience and performance.

7. Layer2 Rollups

   OP Stack and Polygon CDK etc.
   • Modular stack.
   • Improving Ethereum throughput and scalability.
   • Improve interoperability and interoperability.

   • Currently, a large number of applications are built in application chains across various platforms. For example:

Axie launched its Ethereum sidechain Ronin in early 2021.
• DeFi Kingdoms announced its migration from Harmony to the Avalanche subnet in late 2021.
• Injective launched its DeFi application chain built using the Cosmos SDK in November 2021.
• dYdX announced in mid-2022 that the product V4 version will use Cosmos SDK technology to build an independent application chain.
• Uptick Network will launch the Web3 ecological application development infrastructure ecological application chain Uptick Chain in 2023.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Application Chain

Application Chain obtains full power to run a sovereign blockchain instead of relying on the underlying Layer1, which has advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

1. Sovereignty: The application chain is able to solve problems through governance solutions, maintain independence, and avoid external interference.
2. Performance: Low latency and high throughput that meet application requirements and improve DApp efficiency.
3. Customizability: Developers can customize the chain according to their needs, create an ecosystem, and provide flexible evolution methods.

Disadvantages:

1. Security issues: Application chains need to bear their own security responsibilities, including node number trade-offs, consensus mechanism maintenance, and staking risks.
2. Cross-chain issues: As an independent chain, it lacks interoperability, and integrating cross-chain protocols increases risks.
3. Cost issue: It is expensive to build, operate and maintain infrastructure nodes.

For startups, the disadvantages of application chains have a greater impact. It is difficult to solve security and cross-chain issues, and they also face high costs. Therefore, the market needs predictable performance solutions for Layer1.

Elastic Block Space

Elastic Computing

In Web2, elastic computing is a common cloud computing model that allows the system to dynamically expand or contract computer processing, memory, and storage resources as needed to meet changing needs capacity planning and engineering design without worrying about usage peaks.

Elastic block space

Elastic block space automatically adjusts the number of transactions accommodated in the block according to the degree of network congestion. For transactions of specific applications, the blockchain network provides stable block space and TPS through elastic computing Guaranteed, this achieves "predictable performance."

The concept of MegaETH

MegaETH has also proposed a similar concept of "elastic dynamic expansion" and considered it an inevitable development path for DApps to support large-scale adoption. The following technological developments are predicted in the next 1-3 years:

• Phase 1: horizontal expansion at the verification node level;
• Phase 2: static expansion at the chain level;
• Phase 3: dynamic at the chain level Expand horizontally.

The implementation of Artela

And Artela has truly implemented this concept and solved the core problem of the first phase of "how to coordinate the horizontal expansion of verification nodes to support elastic computing". As a protocol grows in the Artela network, it can subscribe to elastic block space to handle the growth in protocol users and throughput. Elastic block space provides independent block space for DApps with high transaction throughput needs, allowing them to scale as they grow. Essentially, block space determines the amount of data that can be stored in each block of the blockchain, directly affecting transaction throughput. When DApps experience a surge in transaction demand, subscribing to elastic block space becomes useful to efficiently handle the increased load without impacting the underlying blockchain.

Implementation of elastic computing

The implementation of elastic computing is divided into "real-time elasticity" and "non-real-time elasticity". "Real-time elasticity" generally refers to minute-level response expansion, while "non-real-time elasticity" only requires a Respond to expansion within a limited time. Artela adopts a "non-real-time elasticity" method, that is, when the network detects the need for expansion, it will initiate an expansion proposal, and the verification nodes of the entire network will complete the expansion after one or more epochs (rather than real-time). And submit the proof of expansion for other validators to challenge.

Artela’s solution

Artela’s elastic block space solution actually draws on many distributed database concepts and is also a continuation of blockchain sharding technology. From the perspective of "computing sharding", the capacity is expanded according to the application traffic that needs it, avoiding the problem of "cross-shard transactions", so that the developer and user experience is no different from before. At the same time, the adoption of "non-real-time elasticity" which is relatively difficult to implement has enhanced the applicability while meeting the actual needs of many DApps.

Premise

It is worth mentioning that as a solution for horizontally expanding blockchain performance, elastic block space is based on the premise that "transactions can be parallelized", which is only needed after the transaction parallelism is increased. Horizontally expand the machine resources of nodes to improve transaction throughput.

So for Layer 1 like Ethereum, the transaction serialization problem is the most direct performance bottleneck. The block size is also limited by the variable size block Gas limit (the upper limit is 30,000,000 gas), so we can only seek Layer 2 expansion. plan.

For high-performance Layer 1 like Solana, although it supports parallel execution of transactions and can scale horizontally, it cannot cope with the problem of "predictable performance" of DApps during peak demand periods. By implementing a “local fee market” solution, Solana aims to prevent any single-demand transaction from monopolizing scarce block space, limiting time-based fee increases and mitigating the negative impact of sudden demand peaks. For example, during an NFT issuance, the NFT issuer will quickly consume each account's computing unit (CU) limit, and subsequent transactions must increase the priority fee to be processed within the limited space of the account.

It can be said that Artela's flexible block space solution to cope with the surge in transaction demand also further extends the concept of "local fee market" in Solana, which not only ensures the "predictable performance" of DApp, but also prevents the entire network from being blocked. A surge in fees and congestion within the range, killing two birds with one stone.

Summary

Whether it is application chain or elastic block space, they are essentially to solve the problem that different DApps have different demands for blockchain performance, or the problem of "predictable performance". There is no good or bad between the two solutions, only Suitable and inappropriate. These two solutions remind me of the "fat protocol theory" - a theory proposed by Joel Monegro in 2016, which revolves around "how cryptographic protocols should capture more (than the collective value captured by the applications built on top of them)" Value" expands.

Application chain

Application chain is essentially a thin protocol, especially when Layer1 adopts a modular architecture, the protocol layer is completely customized by the application layer. Although this brings a better value accumulation mechanism for applications, it also brings high costs and limited security.

Flexible block space

Flexible block space is essentially a fat protocol and an extension of the underlying Layer1 protocol layer. It effectively lowers the barrier to entry for players with a need for “predictable performance.” At the same time, the protocol can also capture application value and create a positive feedback loop.

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