Bitlattice — Questions&Answers

Q: Can you describe the problems that will be hard to overcome within the current blockchain Scope?

A: There are several problems that are already hard to overcome.

• Scalability
• It’s so obvious that even laymen know it. Ethereum tries to deal with it with light client, and Bitcoin with Lightning Network. Both their solutions (and many others) are just workarounds. They may work in short-term. In long — lack of the ability of the blockchain to be scaled is inherent. It’s a one dimensional structure where beginning depends on end and vice versa. There is no good solution to split it. With multidimensional (3+2) scheme of Bitlattice there are actually several strategies that enable scaling. Both atomic and more general. And it’s inherent. So, in simple words, an inherent feature of blockchain is it’s un-scalability, inherent feature of Bitlattice is scalability. Bitlattice’s clusters can operate independently while still retaining integrity. Thus there is no need of full nodes (or plenty of them) when certain network saturation is achieved. Because most of info isn’t stored in blocks — it’s stored in the subtle structure of lattice. In homomorphic transformations leading to certain arrangement of lattice (using a rather popular science analogy — it’s like the data storage in a hologram. Not exact, but gives an idea). All in 3+2 dimensions (because it gives enough capacity for the system itself to live till the end of universe without risk of being overflown, while still being easy to calculate). So, this system is planned to be scalable from the very beginning. Also, what is actually impossible with a blockchain solution, lattice enables concurrent operations (as long as they don’t cross the boundary of two or more clusters that are subject to some operations).
• Timing
• One of the biggest problems with blockchain is time (events) synchronization. Thus you have PoW/PoS and multitude of other proofs. PoS tries to mitigate time issues with in fact dirty hacking and stacking. Lattice solution offers different approach — every cluster of lattice can have own time, as long as there is no operation crossing lattice clusters’ boundary there is no need to synchronize. Even when synchronization must occur changes are communicated by a subtle structure of lattice itself. Like changes in fractal dimensions due to subtle changes of parameters. I’m poor teacher and hardly find good comparisons, but this is closest to actual idea.

Q: What is the point of network saturation that you need to achieve to make full nodes unnecessary?

A: It needs to be calculated. But roughly — it requires few days of operation and enough saturation is achieved. It’s not about big numbers, it’s just about at least some transactions. To have a structure evolved beyond few recorded operations only.

Q: Can you explain a concurrent operation that would cross the boundary of two or more clusters that are subject to some operation?

A: In the present scheme of blockchain there is no possibility to perform more than two operations at once, stemming from the fact that every next blocks depends on the previous. Of course this is mitigated by packing multiple transactions into one block and pushing them collectively. But it’s far from concurrency, rather it’s just a way to deal with this very limited structure. In lattice things are different. There can be multiple root points that are referred to from the main root. It resembles child chains in some applications, but is very different on the basic level of functionality.

With lattice, many operations can be performed at the same moment in time by different miners/processing units. And still the whole structure will retain integrity. Because clusters can, but usually won’t overlap.

Q: Can you give me an example of an application that, if performed on a lattice would outperform blockchain at scale?

A: Actually every operation would be faster and will scale. Because there is no need to consult contents of whole chain every time operations are performed.

Q: Which applications for Bitcoin/Ethereum/Others are running into urgent/critical scaling issues?

A: With time – all of them. There is a never ending story with constantly growing time of BTC operations. After another hack in Ethereum there were considerable problems with even completing transactions.

And this happens in all chains that gain considerable size. While in most cases time to perform hashing grows slowly with a longer chain’s length, it still requires more and more power. Even with lightclient (or Lightning Network) there is still need for many full nodes. And there is no way to circumvent it.

As to real life - check times of txs in most popular chains - hmmm.

• Encryption
• Bitlattice is best suited for lattice-based encryption. And not because of name - actually lattice has two meanings, and my design encompasses both. It was proven that such systems aren't breakable with quantum computers (no way to break an algorithm into concurrent set of operations that QC eats for breakfast). But this isn't the most important feature. The most important is the possibility to make fully homomorphic encryption that leads to entities living in lattice and having their own private/public keys that enable them to independently sign anything. As you know, contracts must still be run by people and cannot use any keys on their own (because such keys could be read from chain). With homomorphic encryption, it becomes possible to have encrypted entities with built in key-pairs interacting with the outside world independently (It has nothing to do with child blockchain).
• As to fully homomorphic encryption - it’s something very novel and experimental. But really cool!
• Wider area of application
• Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile devices currently have problems with chain applications because such applications require lots of resources. Even light clients won't solve the issue, as they still need some chain synchronization and often it is still a lot of data exchanged. Even if the data-transferring wasn’t an issue, the synchronization leaves room for attack vectors due to their dependence on external full nodes. BitLattice will require only having knowledge of the local cluster (with size not being hard set - every size will fit. It will be in discretion of the device to ease work by extending the cluster if performing border-crossing operations turns out to be more expensive). More, even crossing border will be far less costly than comparable chain operations as the only proof required would be proof of subtle structure. Which can be performed with GPU cores as it's based on parametric curves.

Q: Can you list some example advantages of lattices as they apply to IoT?

A: IoT devices are meant to be small and power saving. Thus they cannot provide high processing power. They also cannot serve big storage for data. Blockchain based solutions cannot be fully applied without full node. Bitcoin chain weights now many GBs. The same applies to all popular chains. While memories are cheaper every year, they stopped following Moore’s law. So, probably chains will grow faster than actual data capabilities. Managing storage also requires energy, as well as processing data. So, for IoT there are workarounds like light clients and web apis. While they solve some issues they open new attack vectors.

Lattice needs no workarounds. Only client defined cluster has to be fetched, with boundaries adjusted to most used transaction vectors. Thus it requires very little memory and energy.

Q: Whose attempting to solve similar problems?

A: The entire blockchain industry. Bitcoin with patchy lighting network. Ethereum with patchy light clients. Actually all deal with these problems, via light clients, via sidechains, but none deals by providing better scheme.

Q: If the code is open sourced, what will stop big players from taking your solution and sharing it with their community. What is proprietary?

A: Open source does not mean that there is no license. There can be.

It means just this - the source is open. Bitcoin is open sourced as well. But actual knowledge in this area is so scarce that no one can steal it. The same applies to Bitlattice - if we work out this scheme we’ll have most recent and best knowledge what is under the hood. It’s so simple. And it works well in blockchain world since the beginning.

Q: What about this project is lasting? What gives it longevity?

A: Data Mining, Unique Applications, Communal Developments.

Sustainability against other lattice solutions that come to market…

Flexibility gives it longevity. Blockchain isn’t flexible. It’s very limiting. We provide a structure that can be extended and hacked without harm. And this stems from this structure’s inherent features.

Q: So if first to market and leadership are the plays, it will have to be the community development along with successful dapps that will give Bitlattice sustainability as a revenue generating project.

A: Right. We benefit from being first. Like Bitcoin. And of course at a stage between development finish and deployment it must become community driven project. But not earlier. As to dapps — we’ll give tools only (like Bitcoin) the rest can be made by community members. And will. If our product will provide handy and comfortable tools people will use it.

Q: So there is an educational curve for a developer to use the Bitlattice? What would be the best pre-requisites? Dev’s currently in blockchain communities?

A: Sure, as usual. But as most of operations will be similar or identical to chain ones there will be no steep learning curve. Also, the api can be structured to be similar to those on the market.

Yes, current devs dealing with blockchain. Because who else? Web designers? :)

As to special math skills - for the end users (and end devs) there is no need for them to know what is under the hood. The same with Bitlattice. Those who will need to know details will read the whitepaper and associated docs. All math will be there. The rest will have dev docs aimed at providing comfortable interface.

Q: What will a developer have to do differently in order to develop on Bitlattice?

A: Ideally — nothing. The basic set of operations won’t change. So, transactions, contracts, etc. There will be additional features that they can learn if they want (said autonomous entities). But the base remains unchanged.

Q: Who is your first market?

A: Developer community currently involved in blockchain projects and are reaching urgency in regards to solving for the above mentioned problems.

Plus speculators, traders and all interested in new currencies. Given speed of transactions and different timing schemes, this coin can gain reasonable attention due to its flexibility.

As a side note - I’m trader too. One thing I perceive as an issue in the crypto world is length of lags (confirmations) in main coins. This prohibits fast shifts between coins. Fiat money markets often operate on miliseconds intervals (I have history of being broker on forex years ago and still interested in these issues). Cryptocoins seldom stick to minutes. Especially when there is a need to shift funds between exchanges. That’s why I thought about multiwallet DApp with exchange built in.

Target initial audience depends on what set of native applications will be developed first. As fast operations are an inherent feature applications like swift payments and micropayments can also be a first market.

Q: When you say “attempt to supplement existing blockchain based technologies with more flexible scheme ” Do you mean that Bitlattice net will work together with existing blockchains?

A: Nope. Actually it will replace them, but just not to be negative I tried to use milder wording. But this should be stated otherwise, I agree. As to possible integration — there are possible ports of blockchains into lattice, but not the other way round, as lattice is more complex and cannot be packed into less complex scheme.

Q: Any Unique Features that emerge from the lattice scheme?

A: There are also features not yet mentioned here. Homomorphic encryption and really autonomous entities are mentioned above. More, there are some inherent features bound with math used that enable even faster processing due to leveraging GPUs simplified calculations (in particular matrixes). Also load balancing that with this scheme is easy to apply.

One important feature stems from the fact that nodes in lattice aren’t required to have fixed size. This enables far more flexible data management and permits more sophisticated operations on this data than those possible in classic blockchain. Of course, no fixed size does not mean no limit. Otherwise this network could be subject to quick overflow. Thus, there will be limit, however not fixed one. Price for additional data will grow exponentially and will tend to infinity around certain set value that can (but doesn’t have to) change under certain circumstances. Actual implementation is a matter of evaluation.

And many minor ones that can turn up later to be key ones. But first the structure must be fully evaluated. It’s obvious it will work as expected, the question is what other benefits can be also squeezed from it.

Thank you,
Hibryda

*Questions prepared by Patrick
[published 21.02.2017 on bitlattice.org]