Moving towards the blockchain 4.0 era, a detailed explanation of EKT multi-chain technology

EKT is a modular blockchain underlying framework that will build a public chain ecosystem based on a multi-chain architecture and is committed to becoming a commercial public chain that supports a large number of applications. It can provide enterprises with easy-to-use, flexible and efficient general basic technologies to jointly promote the implementation of blockchain application scenarios.

Why design a public chain with “multi-chain and multi-consensus”?

“Abandon” Blockchain 2.0 ?

Bitcoin and Ethereum, as killer applications and platforms in the blockchain 1.0 and 2.0 eras, have been rapidly developed and popularized, making blockchain technology show explosive growth. From Bitcoin to Ethereum, the blockchain public chain ecosystem has been evolving. At first, Satoshi Nakamoto only wanted to design a trusted bookkeeping account. A few years later, Vtalik creatively combined the oracle with the blockchain, giving birth to blockchain 2.0 .

The original intention of Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin was to create a "global distributed computing machine" - a distributed Turing-complete machine that can be used to calculate everything, a decentralized application platform, and an oracle to resolve financial disputes. However, Ethereum does not have a scalability architecture, making it difficult to isolate resources. Vtalik and Ethereum developers are also aware of this problem, and the solution they provide is sharding . Vitalik firmly believes that the solution to Ethereum's expansion is sharding technology.

The Plasma technology that Ethereum will apply next will make the calculation of the entire network simpler, and at the same time, allow Ethereum to use the PoS algorithm on the existing blockchain. These are measures that must be taken to counter other emerging basic chains. At present, when the basic chain technology is still immature, the pace of technological innovation and upgrading will not stop. The fierce competition is self-evident. Although most Dapps are currently built on Ethereum, developers have had more and more complaints about Ethereum. There are still many innovative technologies and projects that have emerged to improve the technical difficulties of the existing underlying chains.

In the blockchain industry ecosystem, an efficient blockchain public application platform that can meet business needs is indispensable and occupies an extremely important position.

What is “multi-chain”? Why “multi-chain”?

Multi-chain, that is, abandoning the traditional solution of "one chain governing all", adopting the new solution of "one chain, one contract" to redesign a public chain that guarantees the normal operation of each contract. This innovation greatly simplifies the architecture, reduces the pressure of data processing, ensures that the surge in traffic on one chain will not affect the efficiency of another chain, and any business conducted on the chain will not be interfered with by other businesses, effectively realizing resource isolation.

Existing blockchain technology has bottlenecks in performance, capacity, privacy, isolation, and scalability under a single-chain architecture.

Imagine a VISA -like payment application with hundreds of millions of users, tens of thousands of transaction requests per second, hundreds of millions of transactions per day, and a response experience of seconds for user transactions. Under the existing blockchain technology, data storage uses chained local storage, which makes it impossible to expand in parallel. The consensus mechanism uses a synchronous state machine model, which makes it impossible to process transactions efficiently. At the same time, it is limited by the performance limit of a single node in the network. Therefore, the single-chain architecture cannot meet the performance, capacity, user experience and other requirements of the application. In addition, some applications need to parallelize data according to the needs of business functions to meet the business requirements and security requirements of data isolation. Since each full node in a single chain in the current blockchain technology system has all the data in the entire network, it cannot meet the requirements of such applications.

In addition, the interoperability of blockchain itself is a basic requirement for some applications. Imagine a financial management application where users can exchange a certain asset for financial products from different institutions. Different assets need to be transferred and exchanged on multiple chains. Some ORACLE applications also require cross-chain feed interaction between multiple chains, such as exchange rates, weather, stock prices, specific indicators, etc.

Some blockchain applications cannot be fully implemented on a single chain and need to be implemented with the help of scalability, isolation, high performance, interoperability and other features under a multi-chain architecture. Therefore, EKT has designed a "multi-chain multi-consensus" architecture.

In the ecosystem of EKT multi-chain technology, the "multi-chain multi-consensus" mechanism is implemented. The EKT main chain is the most important component. Based on the multi-chain mechanism provided by EKT , other projects can run an independent main chain based on EKT . This independent main chain can flexibly configure the type, quantity and consensus algorithm of tokens according to needs, and can also easily access the ecosystem of EKT multi-chain technology and share the resources of EKT multi-chain technology ecosystem.

1. EKT ’s multi-chain architecture

The EKT multi-chain technology ecosystem is a parallel multi-main chain structure. It has designed a unique multi-chain architecture, which is divided into Token chain and DApp chain. In this multi-chain architecture, in addition to the EKT main chain, it also supports multiple parallel main chains. There will be a main coin in each main chain. Different main chains can adopt different consensus mechanisms, and the default consensus mechanism is DBFT . Developers can create and complete the deployment of their own nodes through the Consensus interface provided by the main chain.

Multichain is a parallel chain where EKT is located, which records all chain and token information. The EKT main chain maintains a unified user system. Based on this user system, whether it is the main chain, multichain or DApp application, it can quickly use the existing user system of the main chain to develop and acquire users. It also greatly reduces the cost of switching between different DApps . In addition, users can modify the public and private key pairs and the encryption algorithms used, which makes the security of EKT 's user system always keep up with the development of the times. Even if quantum computers become popular, users can also replace the algorithm with a new algorithm that is resistant to quantum attacks.

If a main chain running on EKT code wants to join the EKT multi-chain technology ecosystem, how should it do it? EKT multi-chain technology will provide a unified client. This client can be regarded as the entrance for other main chains to connect with the EKT main chain. Other main chains can submit their own main chain information in this client, including deployment nodes, token names, token quantities, and consensus algorithms. After successfully registering with the EKT main chain, this main chain can share the resources of the EKT universal points ecosystem.

Each main chain running on the EKT code needs to have its own token, the so-called "one chain, one main coin". The main coin can be used as a transaction fee on the chain. In addition, since DApp development can also be based on the main chain, it is an upper-layer application of the main chain. The function and consumption of the main coin can be defined in the DApp .

2. Multi-chain asset exchange

As mentioned above, in the EKT multi-chain technology ecosystem, each main chain needs a main coin. Based on the wallet provided by EKT , tokens of different main chains can exist in one account at the same time, which provides a basis for users' cross-chain asset exchange. Only the main chain that joins the EKT multi-chain technology ecosystem can share the user resources of the ecosystem and circulate the tokens of its own main chain in the entire network.

The transaction fee consumed when trading tokens on different main chains is determined by the main chain where the transaction occurs. For example, if chain A forwards an asset to chain B , this transaction is recorded on chain A , so the main coin of chain A needs to be consumed as a transaction fee.

There are two types of cross-chain transfers:

1. Internal cross-chain, because multiple chains share the user system, it is just a big wallet, not a real cross-chain. Since all chains share the same user system, EKT naturally supports cross-chain transfer of assets.

2. Cross-public chain: If two independent public chains want to conduct cross-chain asset transactions, they must first reach a consensus with users, that is, when an address on one public chain is transferred to another public chain, both parties must register on the other public chain first. Then the cross-public chain transfer can be carried out.

There are also two types of cross-public chains:

1. Implemented through cross-chain protocol.

2. In order to be compatible with most public chains, other types of cross-chain will also be implemented through side chains. For the specific content of the cross-chain protocol, please refer to the cross-chain message protocol.

3. Multi-chain, multi-consensus

Blockchain can be seen as a distributed public ledger that records all transactions, and each node in the blockchain is equal. This brings up a question: Who has the right to enter data into this ledger? If several nodes write data to the blockchain at the same time, whose data will be final? This is a question of how to maintain data consistency in a distributed network. Consensus is to make all nodes participating in the network reach data consistency in a distributed network. In the blockchain, the role of consensus algorithms also includes functions such as block production, block verification, and economic incentives of the system. Different consensus algorithms are suitable for different application scenarios, and different application scenarios also have different requirements for consensus algorithms. This requires a blockchain application development platform to provide different consensus algorithms for developers to choose from.

The consensus algorithm used by the EKT main chain is DBFT , which is a solution that takes into account both efficiency and decentralization. By default, the consensus mechanism of other main chains generated based on EKT is also DBFT . However, different consensus algorithms have different applicable scenarios, and the consensus algorithms themselves are also evolving, with many new consensus algorithms proposed every year. Therefore, if a mechanism can be provided to enable the consensus algorithms supported by the EKT ecosystem to continue to expand according to the development of technology, this will be a great advantage for developers developing based on the EKT main chain.

In the early stage of the project, in addition to the default DBFT consensus algorithm, EKT will also support proof of work ( POW ) and proof of equity ( POS ). When users deploy their own main chain based on the code of the EKT main chain, they can choose which consensus algorithm to use. After deployment, register in the EKT client. Once the consensus algorithm is selected, it will be recorded in the EKT main chain and cannot be changed.

The EKT multi-chain technology ecosystem is an open system. Any developer can submit their own new consensus algorithm to the EKT main chain. If the consensus algorithm that the user wants to use is not supported by EKT for the time being , the user can also develop based on the EKT open source code and introduce the consensus algorithm that he wants to use. We encourage and welcome developers to submit their own consensus algorithms to the EKT project.

4. Advantages of Multi-chain Multi-consensus

Compared with most current blockchain application platforms that can only provide a default consensus mechanism, EKT 's "one chain, one main currency, multiple chains, multiple consensuses" mechanism provides great convenience for the subsequent development of blockchain projects and can be used in any application scenario applicable to blockchain. EKT provides a set of low-level blockchain mechanisms, and other blockchain projects can easily deploy their own main chains based on EKT 's main chain code. When deploying the main chain, you can flexibly issue your own main chain tokens and choose consensus algorithms. The newly deployed main chain can also be added to the entire ecosystem of EKT multi-chain technology, share the user resources of the EKT ecosystem, and the tokens can also be exchanged and circulated with the EKT main currency and tokens of other main chains.

Under the multi-chain multi-consensus mechanism, the EKT blockchain will make full use of the advantages of cross-chain technology, integrate and uniformly manage the application scenarios of multiple chains, and form a multi-consensus application scenario ecosystem. This technology will be fully applied and implemented in all major platform fields. The multi-chain structure of the EKT blockchain can meet the diversity of application scenarios, which increases the possibility of multiple integrations of multi-functional platforms. At the same time, the multi-chain structure and cross-chain value exchange can maintain the healthy operation of the entire ecosystem. In the architecture formed by multiple tokens, the main chain will maintain the balance and use of all tokens, so that all tokens can operate normally and drive the harmonious development of the sub-chain ecology.