Today we are going to tell you about blockchain bloating and how FLETA manages to fix it. So, what exactly do we mean by blockchain bloating? When the blocks in the blockchain are filled to the brim with data, so much so that there is a huge waiting line for impending transactions, then that chain is referred to as being bloated. So, before we look into the disadvantages of blockchain bloat, let’s look at the most famous real-world case of this issue.
Ethereum and Cryptokitties
Cryptokitties is a gaming application built on the Ethereum blockchain. The game became extremely popular, in fact, it became a little too popular. Ethereum’s blockchain just wasn’t ready to take this load. Because of the increasing demand for the kitties, the number of unconfirmed transaction on the blockchain increased exponentially.
Image Credit: Quartz
Because of this, Axiom aka the company behind Cryptokitties was forced to increase their birthing fees. This is what they said in their medium article:
“The excitement and adoption we’ve seen this week have been overwhelming and we couldn’t be happier! However, the Ethereum network is completely full. The only way to keep CryptoKitties from lagging is to increase the gas prices so that all transactions can complete quickly. We know that increased prices will mean that some of you will need to slow down your breeding regimen, and we are incredibly disappointed by that. But who knows? Maybe this slowdown will just mean that you’ll love the Kitties you already have that much more”
Cryptokitties taught us a precious lesson on the perils of blockchain bloating. It’s good to want an app that has the potential to go mainstream, but what’s the use if you don’t have the necessary architecture to handle this load?
The Disadvantages of Blockchain Bloat
Blockchain bloat is both a negative sign and a positive sign. No, you didn’t misread that, there is indeed a silver lining in the cloud.
The reason why blockchain bloat is considered to be a positive sign is that it shows that the blockchain is in demand and people are willing to transact with it. If your blockchain is bloaty, then it shows that people like what you have to offer and want more of it.
Now, let’s move on to the negatives. What are the disadvantages of blockchain bloat?
- The transaction confirmation time shoots up. As we saw with cryptokitties, since the main blockchain is so clogged up, the transaction queue invariably increases.
- It takes a long time to synchronize the desktop wallet client with the blockchain network initially. When it comes to Bitcoin, the process can take days.
- Blockchain bloat also has an impact on transaction fees of the network. When there is such limited space in the blocks for the transactions, people will inevitably need to spike their transaction fees for miners to give them preferential treatment.
- Finally, and most importantly, dealing with blockchain bloat leads to incorporating different scaling techniques like sharding, plasma, lightning network, etc. Changing an existing and active blockchain architecture is extremely risky and may lead to irreversible damages down the line.
How FLETA deals with Blockchain Bloat
FLETA’s team knew the perils of blockchain bloat and hence they designed it in a way which made sure that they could mitigate this problem for years to come. FLETA’s original architecture contains two anti-bloating designs:
- Parallel Sharding.
- Independent Multi-chain Structure.
Sharding has been explored in detail here. In this article, we are going to be looking into FLETA’s Independent Multi-chain Structure.
FLETA: Independent Multi-Chain Structure
The independent multi-chain structure is one of the five core design principles of FLETA that sets it apart from the rest. The idea behind its mechanism is pretty simple. The main blockchain should be as light and devoid of activity as possible.
Each and every application built on FLETA gets its own dedicated subchain. On that subchain, they can define their unique in-app tokenomics and machinations, and it will have no impact whatsoever on the main FLETA chain. The advantage of this approach is two-fold:
- Firstly, the main blockchain is free of all the transactions taking place in the Dapps. So, if a Dapp does become mainstream, it won’t grind the main blockchain down.
- Secondly, if anything goes wrong with the Dapp, it won’t affect the main FLETA blockchain and vice-versa.
- Thirdly, DApps can select their desired consensus model. They aren’t required to follow FLETA’s consensus algorithm.
Conclusion
FLETA’s innate design provides a platform which can’t be hampered down by blockchain bloat/scalability issues. The independent multi-chain structure will encourage developers to create ambitious, large-scale Dapps which have the potential to go mainstream.
