Beyond single-core limitations, in-depth analysis of Polkadot’s “elastic expansion” solution

Elastic scaling is a very useful addition for parachains that require higher throughput than the current Polkadot protocol allows.

Polkadot’s mission is to provide a platform focused on exceptional scalability and security. The goal is to allow decentralized applications to run under the best conditions possible.

Polkadot scales by layering the platform architecture. Parachains can submit one block for each block on the relay chain, which is the central chain that provides shared security for all parachains. Relay chains can support up to 300 parachains.

Polkadot’s layered architecture enables parachain projects to consolidate resources and have strong security support, virtually eliminating the threat of attacks. If each parachain ran security measures on its own blockchain, these security resources would be fragmented, making attacks cheaper and easier to carry out.

Elastic Scaling is just one of several exciting changes proposed for Polkadot that open up more possibilities for greater adoption opportunities within the ecosystem.

Scaling parachains to multiple cores

An important aspect of elastic scaling is allowing parachains to generate multiple blocks for each relay chain block and validate them. These parachain blocks can still be constructed sequentially, but the relay chain processes them in parallel.

Polkadot can verify multiple parachain blocks at the same time. We refer to the relay chain resources and times used to validate parachain blocks on the relay chain as "cores", similar to the concept previously loosely known as "slots".

So if the relay chain can verify 50 parachain blocks at a time, we say it has 50 cores, just like a processor with 50 cores can execute 50 threads at the same time. In this way, parachains get multiple cores to execute at the same time, so parachains with high throughput can execute transactions faster.

Core Mission: A New Model

Polkadot’s established model is that potential projects apply for slots by participating in an auction. The new project that wins the auction will become a parachain. The auction determines how many tokens need to be locked. Under the single-core model, this means lease terms ranging from six months to two years.

The Agile Coretime already being implemented changes this paradigm as it allows for more flexible allocation of cores. "Coretime" refers to the right to use a core on the relay chain. The new changes will allow one or more cores to be purchased via on-chain purchases or from the secondary market for shorter periods of time such as a month, an hour or even a block.

Elastic Scaling: Enabling additional cores

Each parachain has multiple cores and Agile Coretime. These two changes together facilitate the implementation of elastic scaling. Through this development method, parachains can rent additional cores for a short period of time, helping them verify blocks faster and thus perform more transactions. Elastic scaling is useful for various entities in the blockchain space. For example, service providers can serve more customers (application developers), helping them increase revenue and reach.

Many applications with unpredictable demands on core time will also benefit from elastic scaling. They save costs by simply buying the core time they need at a specific time, without having to choose between high cost and low performance.

In the early stages of release, the application may only have a small number of users. Obviously, great apps will gradually increase the number of users over time. Elastic scaling allows them to purchase more core time as needed based on user growth.

It is difficult to estimate how much core time a project will require on its future roadmap. If a service only offers rigid scaling, these projects will either have to purchase large amounts of core time initially (and find the money to pay for it), or they will end up offering slow services that risk losing end users once they become popular. .

Cost-Effective Scaling

Many applications tend to purchase more core time than they actually need, which not only increases the price for all parties, but also increases the cost of entry for application developers threshold. Elastic scaling allows them to pay for core time only when needed, lowering costs for everyone. Additionally, projects will be able to resell core time they don’t need in the future through a secondary market that may be introduced with Agile Coretime.

Comparison with other scaling models

So far, Web3 projects that exist in the form of "roll-up", usually Layer-2 operations built on Ethereum, have solved possible problems. Scalability issues. However, these projects also have their own shortcomings, either having to run with weak security (such as an "optimistic" roll-up), or having to perform a lot of calculations on the nodes following a "zero-knowledge" model.

This happens because, in a roll-up, the execution of the block is delegated outside the set of validators. Therefore, most of the computation and storage is done off-chain.

What else can we expect?

As Gavin Wood outlined in Dubai last week, CoreJAM is a more profound and general extension of the Polkadot core model than Agile Coretime or elastic extensions alone (although both can work well Integrated into the CoreJAM model).

In addition, Polkadot can verify more chains. Currently, smart contracts on parallel chains have a limitation, that is, calls between on-chain contracts are synchronous and fast, while cross-chain calls are slower and asynchronous. This leads to a difficult choice: which chain to choose, and which contracts to choose for easy interoperability. The CorePlay idea is a possible extension of CoreJAM that proposes that the same smart contract can be scheduled with different smart contracts where the need for faster calls allows.

Polkadot plans to drive a new wave of Web3 adoption by enabling maximum scalability and security within the Internet in the coming months and years—and the technology will be ready to attract attention .

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