Exploring LAOS Interoperability and Scalability
LAOS offers a solution to the challenges that have long hindered the mainstream adoption of digital ownership. With the ability to connect without bridges to other blockchains, and a capacity to handle hundreds of thousands of transactions-per-second (TPS), this article explains how LAOS’ approach permits an interoperability and scalability that can open new possibilities for tokenization of assets, whether real or virtual.
The limitations faced by the first wave of digital ownership, illustrated by events such as Cryptokitties’ impact on Ethereum in 2017, are well understood. Despite the widespread experimentation with on-chain digital ownership, the lack of an ability to mint at scale — caused by both cost and network congestion — has become a significant roadblock to mainstream adoption. As a result, scarcity and speculation became the first main use-cases for digital asset value.
In 2022, we saw the speculative bubble burst, which prompted a search for tokenization solutions that provide utility above speculation. Several Layer-2s and new Layer-1s have emerged to try to address this challenge. However, many of these solutions have brought their own set of challenges, including user experience issues (such as need for bridges), reliance on centralized components, and forced migration to less mature ecosystems without a wide range of decentralized tools and applications.
LAOS’ architecture is designed to address two of the principal issues facing tokenization today: interoperability and scalability. Functioning as a specialized Relay Chain within Polkadot, LAOS architecture links specialized sub-chains (known as Evochains); permitting it to operate as an entire Polkadot dedicated exclusively to all aspects of Digital Ownership.
As a result, rather than promote itself as “yet another Layer-1”, LAOS focuses on interoperability with other chains. From day 1, LAOS Bridgeless Minting will be able to seamlessly offload all minting from all EVM blockchains, including Ethereum and Polygon, without the need for bridges, and without paying the gas fees of that chain. LAOS architecture permits separating asset ownership from asset attributes. Ownership (including all trading, sending, lending, staking, fractionalisation etc) is managed by the ownership chain (e.g. Ethereum), permitting access to all the functionality of that chain. Yet the asset itself, and its properties, are minted and managed on LAOS, leveraging Polkadot’s Universal Location for Cross-Consensus Messaging (XCMv3) to create a bridgeless connection.
LAOS’s second focus is scalability. The specialized relay chain architecture employed by LAOS means that its throughput is on a par with Polkadot itself — currently around 100K TPS, and eventually reaching up to 1 million TPS. This throughput, combined with the lack of a need to pay gas fees in the ownership chain (e.g. ETH, MATIC), means that using LAOS will always be considerably less costly than minting on the underlying native chain.
This combination of scalability and operability ensures that LAOS offers what many Layer-2 solutions do not:
i) full and complete trading and management of the tokens in the underlying chain, without the need for bridges, roll-ups, zero-knowledge proofs etc. ii) a throughput which is an order of magnitude greater than the native chain, and an associated reduction in cost LAOS’s approach goes beyond simply ‘scalability’. It provides solutions to key challenges that have hindered mainstream adoption, allowing developers and users full access to the most mature ecosystems while enjoying large TPS, and without being forced to deploy in other Layer-1s or Layer-2s, aligning with the desired experience for web3 DApps & games.
While LAOS will launch on Polkadot in spring 2024, Kusama is being used as a test environment, where the full features of LAOS will be deployed over the coming weeks.
Users
Try out the very first app developed on LAOS — the Bridgeless Minter. Create a collection by deploying a Universal ERC721 contract in Ethereum, Polygon, or Polygon Mumbai. Then mint as many assets as you like, for free, trading those assets on Opensea.
Developers
Connect to the LAOS Universal Node and use it just as you would any other EVM node. You can also use LAOS minting features to mint at scale without paying the gas fees of the underlying chain.
30 Nov 2023
