Parallelized Ethereum Virtual Machines: Polygon's Solution to Inscriptions-Induced Blockchain Instability
Summary:
Inscriptions, digital collectibles encoded into a blockchain's transaction fields, are causing performance degradation and crashes on several networks. Branden Farmer, co-founder of Polygon, suggests parallelized Ethereum Virtual Machines (EVMs) could resolve the problem. Inscriptions, first created on Bitcoin, allow data to be embedded within transactions which led to a surge in usage. However, the increase in inscriptions led to network instability and high fees across numerous platforms. Through a conversation with Cointelegraph, Farmer suggests parallelized EVMs could allow unrelated transactions to be processed simultaneously, rather than strictly sequentially, increasing network performance and lowering related fees.
Digital collectibles, known as inscriptions, have emerged as a significant cause for operational degradation and downtime across numerous blockchain networks, inclusive of Arbitrum, zkSync, and Avalanche, to name a few. However, Branden Farmer, the co-founder of Polygon, believes that the integration of parallelized Ethereum Virtual Machines (EVMs) has the potential to conclusively resolve this issue.
It all started with the advent of inscriptions on the Bitcoin network. As a result of the Taproot upgrade in 2021, Bitcoin users realized they could insert data in the 'witness' field, while processing transactions. This data could be an image or a token, and it even allowed the minting of multiple digital assets on the Bitcoin blockchain. However, the sentiments towards this development were mixed; some viewed this as a beneficial update to the network, while others considered it as unnecessary 'spam'.
But the inscription obsession did not cease with Bitcoin. Soon producers began utilizing Ethereum's sidechains and layer-2s including Arbitrum, Avalanche, and Polygon. These novel inscriptions were embedded in the 'calldata' field of an EVM-based network instead of Bitcoin's 'witness' field. This saved storage in a smart contract's state, thereby facilitating a cost-effective way to mint collectibles in comparison to traditional non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
The inexpensive process of minting, along with a surge in inscriptions transactions, led to elevated charges and instability across different blockchain networks. On December 15th, Ethereum's secondary layer Arbitrum was rendered non-functional for more than an hour due to excessive inscription spam. Moreover, during the same month, the operational speed and efficiency of multiple other blockchains suffered alongside extremely high fees as a consequence of these mintings.
In a discussion with Cointelegraph, Farmer suggested that the application of parallelized EVMs could present a solution. With parallelization, unrelated transactions could be processed faster to enhance the overall processing capacity of blockchains, thus effectively dealing with the spam. Currently, all transactions within a block are executed in sequence. However, with a parallelized EVM, unrelated transactions could be processed concurrently instead of following the order. Consequently, disparate transactions like Uniswap transactions, inscriptions, and NFT mintings could be processed simultaneously.
The benefit of this concurrent processing capability is that it helps 'localize gas fees' to areas of contention. For instance, when numerous individuals try to use Uniswap simultaneously, they may have to bear higher fees due to the fact that these related transactions have to be processed in sequence. Conversely, other users minting NFTs would not be significantly affected by this surge in Uniswap usage. According to Farmer, this feature hasn't been implemented on Polygon's Proof of Stake (PoS) yet, but it's a part of their ultimate objective.
Additionally, parallelism could lead to an overall increase in throughput. Polygon's development team has kicked off this journey with 'Block-STM', attributed as the 'first step' towards parallelization, resulting in a 1.6 times improvement in performance. Farmer asserts that they have achieved or are on the verge of achieving a two-fold improvement. Originally proposed by Solana's developers, parallelization is being adopted by different blockchains such as Aptos, Monad as well as Polygon and others to upgrade performance. The Ethereum ecosystem's innovative approach combines parallelization with a block space increase via layer-2 ecosystems like Polygon 2.0 to enhance the performance.
Published At
1/20/2024 12:16:53 AM
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