Full Stack Parallelization: Artela's High-Performance Blockchain Solution

Recently, the emerging parallel EVM Layer1 project Artela released a white paper on "full-stack parallelization". This white paper aims to explore how to fully unleash the scalability potential of Blockchain, enabling decentralized applications (DApps) to achieve "predictable performance".

Predictable performance refers to providing a predictable transactions per second (TPS) for DApps. This feature is crucial for DApps in certain specific business scenarios. Traditionally, DApps deployed on public Blockchains must compete for computing resources and storage space with other applications. During periods of network congestion, this can lead to increased transaction execution costs and delays in processing, severely restricting the development of DApps.

To address this issue, the industry has proposed two main solutions: application chains and elastic block space.

Application Chain: Dedicated Blockchain Solutions

Application chains are blockchains specifically designed to run a single DApp. Developers can customize multiple aspects such as virtual machines, consensus mechanisms, and network protocols to meet specific design requirements. This approach can effectively address issues such as congestion, high costs, and limited functionality on shared networks.

The concept of application chains is not new. For example, Bitcoin can be seen as an application chain of "digital gold," while Arweave is an application chain for permanent storage. In recent years, application chains have also developed multi-chain ecosystems, such as Cosmos and Polkadot. These projects are dedicated to solving the interoperability issues between blockchains.

However, application chain solutions also face some challenges. While they provide DApps with ample autonomy and customizability, they also bring security risks, cross-chain interoperability issues, and high development and maintenance costs. These factors may hinder some startup teams from adopting application chain solutions.

Elastic Block Space: Flexible Performance Guarantee

To overcome the limitations of application chains, Artela has proposed the innovative solution of Elastic Block Space (EBS). This solution draws on the concept of elastic computing in cloud computing, allowing for dynamic adjustment of block resources based on the actual needs of DApps, providing independent scaling block space for high-demand DApps.

Elastic block space allows blockchain networks to automatically adjust the number of transactions each block can accommodate based on network congestion levels. For transactions of specific applications, the network can provide stable block space and TPS guarantees through elastic computing, thus achieving "predictable performance".

Artela adopts a "non-real-time elastic" approach to achieve this functionality. When the network detects the need for scaling, it initiates a scaling proposal. After a certain period of time, the validation nodes of the entire network will complete the scaling and submit the scaling proof for review by other validators.

This solution draws on the concept of distributed databases and can also be seen as a continuation of Blockchain sharding technology. It expands capacity for applications with demand, avoiding the "cross-shard transaction" issue, making the experience for developers and users not significantly different from traditional methods.

Conclusion

Whether it is application chains or elastic block space, the essence of these two solutions is to address the differentiated performance needs of different DApps on the Blockchain. They each have their advantages and are suitable for different scenarios and requirements.

The application chain can be viewed as a "thin protocol", especially in the case where Layer1 adopts a modular architecture. It provides a better value accumulation mechanism for applications, but it also brings higher costs and limited security.

In contrast, elastic block space can be seen as a "fat protocol". As an extension of the underlying Layer 1 protocol, it effectively lowers the entry barrier for participants who demand "predictable performance", while also enabling the protocol to capture application value, forming a positive feedback loop.

With the continuous development of Blockchain technology, we can expect to see more innovative scalability solutions paving the way for the prosperous development of the DApp ecosystem.