Scalable decentralized blockchain

Rage Review: This paper discusses the bottleneck problem of Bitcoin in terms of throughput and low latency. The paper proposes a feasible way to achieve high performance, including trying to re-set various parameters to improve the performance of the blockchain by quantitative measurement. However, the author also believes that if the efficiency of the Bitcoin blockchain is really to be improved on a large scale, the best way is to re-set the Bitcoin blockchain protocol, and believes that only in this way can the performance of the Bitcoin blockchain be improved on a large scale. Of course, we can also imagine that this is an overly bold proposal for the Bitcoin community. However, from the paper's explanation, it is completely feasible to at least design a blockchain technology that can achieve industrial-grade load and throughput capabilities.

Translation: Height difference signal is full

A new paper argues that fundamental changes are needed in the design of decentralized blockchain networks before any iteration of the technology can serve as a transaction network for consumers around the world.

The paper, titled “On Scaling Decentralized Blockchains,” is written by researchers from Barclays University, Cornell University, ETH Zurich, National University of Singapore, and University of Maryland, including co-author of the report on multiple micropayment pathways, Christian Decker, and authors of the Bitcoin-NG proposal report: Ittay Eyal, Adem Efe Gencer, and Emin Gün Sirer.

After following the WeChat account “区块链笔Blockchain”, reply with the keyword “paper 11” or “scalable” to view and download the paper.

Although the two papers have different intentions, both papers focus on how to achieve scale in decentralized blockchain networks and put forward many new ideas. Currently, whether it is for large financial institutions that hope to use technology to change existing large-scale financial transaction systems, or for Bitcoin developers seeking to expand the transaction capabilities of digital currencies, scaled blockchain is a hot topic.

As public attention to the digital currency grows, scaling has become a "very important and urgent" issue for the bitcoin network, the authors said, a topic that has been hotly debated in the bitcoin space for months.

In summary, the paper analyzes the fundamental bottlenecks of decentralized public blockchains and how these bottlenecks limit the capacity of their peer-to-peer miner networks, making it impossible to support huge volumes of Bitcoin transactions in the short term.

The paper does not provide any analysis of franchised networks, which refers to a group of units or a single unit that manages a blockchain-based accounting system in a more centralized manner.

The authors’ new analysis will be presented at the 2016 Crypto Finance and Data Security Conference, which will be held in Barbados from the 22nd to the 26th of this year.

Inherent Problems

In the paper announcement, several authors reiterated their previous criticisms of what they see as scaling issues inherent in Bitcoin’s current design and short-term improvements.

Back in September 2015, some researchers on “CoinDesk Conversation” discussed “endogenous problems” in blockchain design.

Ittay Eyal, for example, said that when he was drafting Bitcoin NG, he saw fundamental problems with blockchain design that would be a challenge for any public or private application.

He told CoinDesk at the time:

“For the securities market, trading digital assets, if you want to operate these businesses through blockchain, you have to achieve massive scale of blockchain.”

Notably, during the same month, Eyal attended the Bitcoin Scaling event in Montreal, where he introduced Bitcoin-NG, a radical attempt to scale decentralized blockchain networks to reach mass adoption of the technology.

Scientific Program

Looking at the paper as a whole, the focus is on whether decentralized blockchains can be scaled to meet the working requirements of mainstream payment processors, and how blockchains can achieve the above functionality.

The authors go on to describe the general problems facing scaling Bitcoin and blockchain, and propose a path to achieving high-performance, decentralized systems:

1. Reparameterization Exploration and Measurement Study - The authors attempt to quantify current scaling limitations using an experimental measurement approach that includes a series of measurement calculations to measure Bitcoin’s performance and resource costs.

2. Mapping a wider design space for scalable blockchains — The authors conclude that “blockchain protocols must be redesigned to achieve scale without sacrificing centralized performance,” and suggest a variety of technical approaches that they believe could help blockchains scale in the future.

3. Proposing open challenges - The authors call for better measurement techniques so that healthy decentralized systems like Bitcoin can be continuously monitored. In addition, the authors discuss the security and robustness of the network after changing multiple parameters.

Block size is the first step

Based on their measurement studies, the authors suggest that achieving “more aggressive” scaling in the long term would require a fundamental redesign of Bitcoin’s protocol.

They also propose some “likely” approaches to achieving scaling, catalog new ideas that have recently emerged, and present some open technical challenges for the Bitcoin community.

At the end, the paper argues that modifying blockchain size parameters and the time required between transactions is only the first step in the goal of achieving "the next generation, high-load blockchain protocol." If Bitcoin is to make major progress, we must "rethink" its basic coding.