Introducing our technical report on transparency
Well before the Layer-2 gold rush and even before Ethereum’s mainnet launch, the Verifier’s Dilemma foreshadowed an enduring scalability bottleneck for blockchains. To this day, native Ethereum smart contracts execute only simple operations, and composing on-chain processes remains a costly challenge.
Truebit’s implementation on Ethereum relieves native limitations by certifying complex computations on behalf of smart contracts. Each such implicit certificate spans roughly a dozen Ethereum transactions which collectively enable tamper-proof, on-chain callbacks while avoiding centralized infrastructure.
Unfortunately, implicit certificates fail to meet the needs of many operations outside of smart contracts. Besides bearing portability, performance, reliability and cost requirements, mainstream applications consume and deliver data through interfaces like DNS, HTTPS, and APIs which remain inaccessible to smart contracts. Moreover, time-pressed constituents may prefer not to scrape blockchains for implicit certificates in old school, web3 fashion.
Our new technical report, Truebit Unchained, introduces explicit certificates for data and event provenance “unchained” from any particular network. Whether or not a source or downstream action involves a blockchain, an explicit certificate can reach a skeptical individual or machine through standard channels like email or API. In order to pull off this bit of magic, we introduce a new computation paradigm, called transparency, centering around a cloud-capable Hub. Just as smart contracts govern Solvers’ and Verifiers’ behavior the Hub orchestrates Nodes.
With a single image of the Stateville Correctional Center’s watchtower, Simon de la Rouviere’s panopticomputer elegantly captures Truebit’s essence. This setting amplifies smart contracts’ authority as universal, albeit limited, sources of truth. In a robust, modern twist, transparency explicitly raises and answers the ageless question, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes: who watches the watchmen?” To carry forward the analogy, a Hub can never run amok in an inverted panopticomputer wherein untrusted, Node “inmates” bound the autonomy of both system and external actors. In the Hub’s case, each false step sets off alarms triggering recourse in the outside world.
Transparent systems complement open source code. While open source provides convenient guarantees for code running on local machines, code running on others’ machines requires transparency to achieve similar effect. Indeed, an entity can publicize a code repository while running a distinct variant on its server.
As transparency propagates to constituent applications, I personally look forward to witnessing the practical effects of more reliable information sharing. Enjoy the paper, and welcome to our world.
