Bitcoin block size debate and Ethereum's road to unified architecture

From 2015 to 2017, Bitcoin went through a well-known block size war. This was a key conflict in Bitcoin's history, as hardliners argued over what was the right scaling strategy for the Bitcoin network, one that would ensure the network could scale over time to accommodate continued growth. needs.

The two sides of the debate are "BigBlockers" (big blockists) and "SmallBlockers" (small blockists).

• BigBlockers advocates increasing the original size of Bitcoin blocks from 1MB to 8MB. This will increase the throughput of Bitcoin transactions by 8 times while reducing transaction costs.

• SmallBlockers advocates keeping the block size smaller, believing that increasing the block size will harm the decentralized nature of Bitcoin and make the Bitcoin blockchain unusable for ordinary users. Verification is more challenging.

• An alternative path called SegWit (Segregated Witness) was eventually proposed that optimizes the number of transactions a single block can accommodate without directly increasing the block size. SegWit will also open the door to scaling solutions outside of the core Bitcoin protocol, namely Layer 2 extensions.

To fully emphasize these points, SmallBlockers hopes to scale in two ways:

• Increase block density, allowing for inclusion within the same space More deals.

• Opens the door to layered scaling strategies and creates space for practical off-chain scaling solutions.

So, the debate is: should we increase the block size? Or should we maintain a certain block size and force expansion to higher layers?

1. Current status of BigBlockers and SmallBlockers

The debate over block size has been enduring in the history of encryption development and continues to this day.

We no longer call these factions BigBlockers or SmallBlockers; today, people find more relatable modern factions, often defined by a specific L1. However, the different ideals expressed by the two camps can be seen in the culture and belief systems of each L1 camp, whether they know it or not.

Today, the debate between SmallBlockers and BigBlockers is reflected in the dispute between Ethereum and Solana.

• The Solana camp points out that Ethereum is too expensive and too slow to bring the world on-chain. Consumers won’t use cryptocurrencies unless transactions are instant and free, and we need to design L1 to have as much capacity as possible.

• The Ethereum camp stated that this is a fundamental compromise on decentralization and trusted neutrality. Winners and losers are set and will ultimately produce the same results as we are trying to get rid of. of the same social financial stratification. We should focus on increasing the density and value of L1 blocks and force expansion to L2s.

This controversy is nothing new. The crypto landscape is constantly changing, adapting, and evolving, but the debate over the idea of ​​small blocks versus big blocks remains the same.

2. Complex blocks and original blocks

The biggest innovation of Ethereum from 0 to 1 is the addition of a virtual machine to the blockchain. All previous chains to Ethereum lacked the key element of a virtual machine, attempting to add single opcode functionality rather than a fully expressive virtual machine.

Early Bitcoiner concepts did not agree with this choice because it increased the complexity of the system, expanded the attack surface, and increased the difficulty of block verification.

Although both Bitcoin and Ethereum are "small block" chains, the expansion of the scope of virtual machines has still created a huge wedge between the two communities. To this day, you can clearly see the divisions between some of the larger camps of modern blockchain ideas.

While this view is likely to be mired in 2024, I think these four L1 blockchains occupy four different types of valid logic in the L1 architecture in conclusion.

• Bitcoin is highly constrained and limits L1 performance at all costs.

• Ethereum is heavily constrained on L1, but the new L1 performance is to create room for unconstrained block supply on L2s.

• Celestia limits its L1 performance but maximizes its capacity, forcing more features to be pushed to L2 but giving them maximum room to build (this is "BuildAnything" The origin of this motto).

• Solana is super untethered, maximizing the capacity and functionality of L1 while limiting the ability to build higher layers.

3. Functional Escape Velocity

My crypto investment point of view is that blockchains that incorporate the concepts of small blocks and large blocks in their design will eventually win crypto game of Thrones.

There is nothing wrong with SmallBlockers and BigBlockers. They all have their own opinions. There is no point in arguing about who is right and who is wrong - the point is to have a system that maximizes both.

The Bitcoin architecture cannot meet the needs of both BigBlockers and SmallBlockers. Bitcoin SmallBlockers claims that the expansion will occur at Layer 2s, and they pointed out the Lightning Network to BigBlockers as a way out, while allowing them to remain Bitcoiners in the Bitcoin system. However, due to the feature limitations of Bitcoin L1, the Lightning Network was unable to gain support and momentum, and Bitcoin BigBlocers had nowhere to go.

In 2019, Vitalik published an article titled "Base Layer and Functional Escape Velocity", which elaborated on the same situation and advocated minimally increasing the functionality of L1 to produce practical L2s.

"Although L1 cannot be too powerful, because more powerful functions mean greater complexity, which also means greater vulnerability, L1 must be powerful enough to make the L2 that people want to build protocol is truly possible."

"Keep L1 simple and make up for it on L2" is not a universal answer to the problem of blockchain scalability and functionality because it does not take L1 blockchains into account. It must itself be scalable and functional enough to make "building on top of it" possible.

My conclusion is:

• In order to ensure that L2s can achieve the "functional escape velocity", we need to expand the scope of the L1 block to "maximize small blocks" outside. We need block complexity.

• We should not increase the scope of L1 blocks beyond the point where "L2 functional escape velocity" is achieved, as this unnecessarily compromises the decentralized nature and trustworthiness of L1 neutrality. Any additional L1 utility can be pushed to L2s. We should keep the small block philosophy.

This is also a compromise between both parties. SmallBlockers must accept that their blocks become more complex and (slightly) harder to verify, while BigBlockers must accept a layered scaling approach.

Once the compromise is consistent, the synergy will blossom and bear fruit.

4. Ethereum L1—the root of trust

Ethereum is the root of trust.

Ethereum L1 maintains its small block philosophy by leveraging cryptographic advances to generate higher levels of functional escape velocity. By receiving proofs of fraud and proofs of validity from higher layers, Ethereum can effectively compress infinite transactions into an easily verifiable transaction package, which is then verified by a decentralized network of consumer hardware.

This design architecture retains the crypto industry’s fundamental commitment to society. Ordinary people can check and balance the power of experts and elites. Everyone has equal access to the system. No one is privileged. No one is a guaranteed winner.

The crypto industry made a conceptual promise, and Ethereum turned that concept into reality through cryptographic research and old-fashioned engineering techniques.

Imagine that small blocks are at the bottom and large blocks are at the top. In other words, L1 is a decentralized, trustworthy, neutral, consumer-verifiable block, while highly scalable, real-time, Low-cost transactions are conducted on L2s!

Ethereum does not look at the concept of small blocks and large blocks from a horizontal perspective, but flips it vertically and builds a large block structure based on secure and decentralized small blocks.

Ethereum is the small block anchor of the big block universe.

Ethereum supports thousands of large block networks to flourish, and synergy blossoms from a coherent, composable ecosystem rather than forming numerous L1 fragments.

5. Cosmos: The Lost Tribe

So, what role does Cosmos play in this debate? Cosmos does not insist on strict compliance with network design. After all, there is no “Cosmos” network yet—Cosmos is still just a concept.

This concept is the Internet of sovereign chains. Each chain has maximum, uncompromising sovereignty and is able to be held together to some extent by sharing technical standards that abstract their complexity to a certain extent.

#The problem with Cosmos is that it is so fundamentally committed to service sovereignty that the Cosmos chain cannot coordinate and organize itself well enough to share each other’s successes. Excessive indexation of sovereignty will cause excessive confusion and is not conducive to the expansion of the Cosmos concept. Maximizing sovereignty accidentally optimizes anarchy. Without a central coordinating structure, Cosmos remains a niche concept.

6. Sovereign escape velocity

Similar to Vitalik’s concept of “functional escape velocity”, I think there is also a “sovereign escape velocity” phenomenon. For the Cosmos concept to truly take root, it requires small compromises in network sovereignty to maximize its potential.

The Cosmos concept and the vision of Ethereum L2 are basically the same. A horizontal pattern consisting of independent, sovereign chains that are free to choose their own destiny.

The core difference is that Ethereum L2s compromises a certain degree of sovereignty to Ethereum L1 by publishing its state root on the L1bridge contract. This small change externalizes previously internal operations by selecting the central L1 to settle their native bridge.

Extending L1’s security and settlement guarantees through cryptographic proofs, countless L2s born based on Ethereum functionally become the same global settlement network. This is the flower of the extraordinary synergy between small block and big block concepts.

(1) Synergy 1: Chain Security

L2 chains do not have to pay for their own economic security, they eliminate a large number of sources of network inflation from their underlying assets, and in their respective tokens Annual inflation of 3-7% is retained in the value.

Take Optimism as an example: assuming its $14 billion FDV and 5% annual security budget, that’s $700 million annually that it doesn’t have to pay to third-party external security providers. In fact, the Optimism mainnet paid $57 million in gas fees to Ethereum L1 last year, a metric measured before the release of 4844, and reduced L2 fees by over 95%!

Economic security costs drop to zero, making DA (data availability) the only meaningful ongoing operating cost for L2 networks. Since the DA cost is also close to zero, the net cost of L2s is also close to zero.

By creating sustainability for L2s, Ethereum can release as many chains as market demand creates, creating more sovereign chains than the Cosmos model can produce.

(2) Synergy 2: Composability

The customer acquisition cost of L2s also becomes marginal because L1’s crypto-proof settlement provides Reliable link between all L2s. By retaining the settlement guarantee of L1, users can easily travel between L2. But service providers that provide chain abstraction services (bridges, intent fillers, shared sequencers, etc.) can provide more powerful services if they have uncompromising security guarantees on the foundation upon which their business is built.

Additionally, as many L2s come online, each L2 attracts its own edge users into the larger Ethereum ecosystem. Since all L2s bring their users into Ethereum, the total number of Ethereum users will become larger as the network grows, making it easier for edge L2s to find enough users.

Ethereum has been criticized for being “fragmented”, ironically the opposite is true as Ethereum is the only one that stitches together other sovereign chains via cryptographic proofs Network together. In contrast, many L1 areas are completely fragmented, while Ethereum's L2 area only has fragmentation issues in terms of latency.

(3) Synergy 3: Accounting unit

All advantages are concentrated on the Schelling point of ETH assets. The more network effects surround the Ethereum ecosystem, the stronger the tailwinds for ETH as a currency will be.

ETH becomes the unit of account for all its L2 networks, with each L2 network generating economies of scale by centralizing security onto Ethereum L1.

7. Conclusion

The Ethereum project is pursuing a single unified architecture that encompasses the broadest set of possible use cases. This is a one-stop network.

The combination of small but powerful L1 is the foundation needed to open up the maximum possible design space on L2s. One of the sayings of early Bitcoiners is: "Useful things will eventually be built on Bitcoin." I completely believe this statement. Especially for the Ethereum network, this is exactly what Ethereum is optimized for.

The value of protecting the crypto industry happens at L1.

Decentralized, censorship-resistant, permissionless and trusted neutrality. If these can be held on L1, then they can be functionally scalable to an unlimited number of L2s that can cryptographically bind themselves to L1.

The core supporting argument for Ethereum in the crypto power game is that any Alt L1 can be better built as an L2, or as a feature set integrated into the L1.

In the end, everything will become branches on the Ethereum tree.

The above is the detailed content of Bitcoin block size debate and Ethereum's road to unified architecture. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!