The Concept of Hierarchical Self-Purging Blockchains Explained
I'm not really the best teacher on this planet. Sometimes when I communicate, it might not come out as clearly as intended. @durzo wanted some clarification regarding some of the ideas I've presented in my last post which you can read Here. I must say that I'm not a programmer or cryptographer. I'm just a highschool dropout self-learning and creating content on the internet. So approach my above mentioned post as brain food than a whitepaper.
A Hierarchy of Self-Purging Blockchains
A blockchain is a distributed ledger reaching consensus on which version of the ledger is the real deal. I'll let the founder of Hashgraph take you through a crash course. Please take 17 minutes and 14 seconds to view the video.
My original idea was developed as a method to use blockchain based E-Sports that are immune to cheating. If you had sub second blocks in a sharded match where you play something like LOL or DOTA 2 where each action in game is recorded in a blockchain, we've got something awesome. We have a 100% fair and cheat free platform. But League of Legends passed 27 million daily players 4 years ago. Storing all that game data is a waste. At the end of each game you just need to know a few things. You need an immutable and fair record to get to those final stats but after that 99.999% of data will be simply useless stuff that just fill up memory. What we really need is those final results.
What is the Bottom line of a Crypto "Currency"?
The "Currency" coins are the most basic form of crypto projects. "Currency" coin is basically just a DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) based spreadsheet of wallets and how much "Currency" they have in those wallets. The point of recording every Tx ever done is to ensure the immutability of the blockchain. Recording all of the Tx isn't part of the bottom line. It's merely a means to achieve that bottom line.
Now tell me how many STEEM blocks can you make while BTC make one block? When Buttcoin isn't going through a flippening, the answer is 200. Let's assume that all Tx are fund transfers and most accounts get involved in multiple TX within those 10 mins (like @blocktrades @minnowbooster etc). What if you could simply enter the net effect of those multiple Tx into the "Block". That would clear up some space.
This is the idea I wanted to present. When a single account gets involved in multiple Tx in a X amount of time, storing all those individual Tx takes up necessary space. This is when the hierarchy comes in. What if you could analyse every set of 200 STEEM/BTS blocks and summerize the net effect of those Tx in a single super block. After the creation of this super block and adding it to its own blockchain, you can delete those 200 blocks which had 3 second block times.
The blockchain with 10 minute blocks can have a higher level blockchain which has 24 hour blocks (1 super block per 144 lower level blocks). This makes the memory issue of on-chain scaling completely disappear. With monthly blocks, one would be able to scale on chain with a memory card while having 1,000,000 Tx/s It's a simple and elegant solution. The tough part would be making sure that nothing gets tampered in the process of super-block creation. If anybody can pull that off the only primary scaling problem would be reducing the block time and having more Tx/s
Hopefully I did a good job at getting across my ideas :-) Until next time,
Happy steeming!
This is a really great idea. I just wonder how difficult it is to implement. I guess the hard part would be creating these super-blocks in a secure way. I think some sort of masternodes and/or oracles would be required.
One thing that worries me a little with blockchain scaling is that the whole history is needed to guarantee its integrity. The blockchain will keep on growing, whether it grows fast or slow is not very relevant because regardless the same problem will arise which is data accumulating.
I've watch antonopoulos talk about scaling and compare blockchain to the internet, saying that blockchains will scale the same way internet scaled. This analogy is false imo, because data on the internet does not need to be permanently stored and that's the big challenge for blockchains.
Regarding your idea I think it's good but it is only slowing down the growth of the blockchain ( unless I missed something).
Actually it is relevant. If the blockchain grows slower or only as fast as the technology, we'd have no scaling issues. My "Idea" of discarding blockchains after storing the net effect of the blockchain into a new blockchain is the best solution IMO. Slowing down of growth and increasing the amount of Tx per second is actually all we need. I remember as a kid, seeing a 4GB pen drive was something huge. Now I can't even find something with such low storage capacity.
Since there are no non-technological limitations to the hierarchy, you could even make year long blocks. If an exchange do 50 million Tx in a year, we could summerize the net effect of that in a single Tx in the new yearly super-block. Make it possible to pick which blockchain level you need to operate on will make things even easier. We can have expensive Tx that only take milliseconds (for exchanges etc.) and use a daily block to send someone a birthday gift or make travel reservation for an ultra cheap cost.
Thanks for the Comment :-)
How do you delete a block without messing up the hash pointers?
You don't delete the blocks. Let's say there is an exchange or merchant that does 10,000 Tx a day. We can use 3 second blocks to do the Tx and each day there is another blockchain that record the net effect of the exchange/merchant as a single Tx. On the next day, the 3 second Blockchain can reset itself and get the data from the 24 hour blockchain.
Think you put some Bitcoin into Binance and do 25 different trades in 5 minutes and converted everything back into BTC and transfer it to your BTC wallet. The blockchain is only going to register your 2 Tx with Binance. There will be no records of the other 25 Tx on BTC. It'll be only on Binance servers. My proposal is on chain solution where multiple interoperable blockchains with different blockchains. The higher level blockchains will record the net effect of lower level blockchains. After this net effect is recorded, you can restart the lower level blockchain using the higher level blockchain as a reference.
OK. This is just a form of side chain. You put a starting transaction in the top level chain, run a series of transaction in the lower levels and accumulate them. When you're done then you make a top level ending transaction with the accumulated activity .
Isn't this essentially how the Lighting Network works?
Comparing LN and my concept is like comparing Ethereum and EOS. They are kind of going for the same hing but there are fundamental differences. My concept is 100% on-chain. It slows down the growth of the blockchain size greatly. There are also added features like selecting your Tx speed/cost/risk. It's also easier to deal with attacks. Komodo uses delayed POW (they recycle the BTC mining power essentially making it the most secure proof of work platform). Each level of the blockchain concept I discussed can be a different blockchain with its own security. If somebody breaks SHA-256 BTC is done. Dash actually has 11 algorithms chained together. But with my proposed system, you could use practically anything and everything.
The only major downside to what I propose is it'll be a total hell to develop. A smart ontract platform is just for other people to run DAPPs on it. But what I propose is to make a mesh of blockchains. The difference is like setting up a simple LAN at home Vs a decentralized P2P global network. It's going from http to IPFS.
Do you have a formal description or a white paper? I'm working on a mesh concept of my own. A true mesh allows for things block chains don't like - things like cycles in the graph.
No. I'm not a programmer or anything. I've only been into crypto since last year. I was simply trying to get rid of the need for a total history to keep the blockchain immutable.
Thx for the clear explanation,resteem and upvoted, I will take my time to let in sink in and truly understand it
Take your time :-)
I like it, essentially compressing that which is stored on the blockchain so you can store more things. Did you see how many downvotes my last article about Parkland got?
Bloom and Sneak are downvoting stuff that goes against some of the MSM narrative. Both accounts have a history of casting similar votes. They may or may not be related.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@ura-soul/just-so-we-re-clear-the-tech-manager-of-steemit-is-anti-democracy-and-pro-oligarchy-in-his-own-words
Showed you some support there. That bloom was a big flag.
Thanks! It's funny, I don't think it would be so cowardly if they actually left a comment about why they were so triggered. The other day I criticized a pro gun control post and the poster gave me several down votes but instead of down voting him I found a funnier way to win, I resteemed him! Then he has to face all of my followers reactions to his crap! I'm calling this maneuver "the asshole resteem" I think I will write a post about it, after his post closes, so no one can up vote it.
Smart thinking :-)
I will have to thank him for inspiring this
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