BlockShots: Blockchain Simplified

When users stake their tokens to provide security and validation in a PoS network, those tokens are locked for the duration of staking. The users can’t use staked tokens for anything else. This is native staking.

In Liquid Staking, a liquid token is generated and given to the user in return of staked tokens for the duration of staking. The liquid tokens could be used in some scenarios like DeFi, effectively making the staked tokens useful while staking.

Sharding in blockchain is of two types — execution sharding and data sharding. There could be other types in the future, the crypto space evolves quickly.

In episode 41, what I explained was primarily execution sharding. Where the transaction execution is divided across several sub-chains for faster throughput.

https://episodes.blockshots.fm/p/episode-41-blockchain-sharding#details

However, Ethereum has moved away from the execution sharding roadmap and is now moving towards data sharding. 

In data sharding, the validators form smaller subnets (shards) to verify and validate chunks of data posted by the rollups. Hence data sharding is a way to scale and improve data availability on Ethereum. Not every validator has to download all the data chunks, they only have to download and verify on a subnet level. Hence, data is sharded across several shards (logically).

To scale blockchains, we need scalability solutions like rollups. To make sure that the rollups are doing the right thing, we need data availability. And to ensure that data availability is done right, we need data availability sampling.

This episode explains data availability sampling at a high level and tries to paint a bigger picture on how some of the above mentioned concepts are connected.

For details, I encourage to check out the article linked below:

https://www.paradigm.xyz/2022/08/das

Validiums are L2 scaling solutions similar to ZK Rollups with a basic difference that they use a separate data availability layer instead of posting rollup data on the execution layer (Ethereum mainnet).

Validiums also use ZK proofs to prove state transition validity to the L1. Similar to ZK Rollups, Validiums post the validity proof on the Ethereum mainnet (execution layer). However, unlike ZK Rollups, they don’t post the rollup transaction data on Ethereum mainnet. Instead, they post the data on a separate data availability layer.

This allows validiums to scale more than ZK Rollups, because they are not limited by data availability bandwidth of Ethereum. However, it also makes them relatively less secure because the user withdrawls from L1 could be restricted if data is not properly made available by the external offchain data availability layer.

There is a new term in the crypto land — blobspace.

Before understanding blobspace, let’s first do a quick refresher on data availability. Check out Episode 88 of the podcast.

https://episodes.blockshots.fm/p/episode-88-what-is-data-availability#details

Data availability is about making the L2 block data available on the L1s. For Optimistic rollups — to build fraud proofs. For ZK Rollups — to know the state transitions.

How do we make data available? By posting it on the L1 chain. Currently it is being posted as a hack — utilising the CALLDATA field in Ethereum transaction format. But that is inefficient and expensive.

To improve data availability on Ethereum, an update is planned to introduce posting of data blobs on the L1. This would make data availability cheaper and more efficient for rollups.

The data blobs posted by L2s with their transaction data have their own dedicated space inside the blocks. This space is logically separate from the L1 transaction data and is informally called as blobspace.

Just a couple of days ago, in a work call, someone asked me the difference between blockchain and blockspace.

Blockspace is a bit of a abstract concept. The capacity to fit transactions in a block.

Check out episode 44 for a overview of block limits.

https://episodes.blockshots.fm/p/episode-44-block-gas-limit-block#details

Blockspace is a higher lever concept that refers to the overall capacity of the blockchain to process transactions and data, per block.

When we evaluate blockchains, looking from the blockspace perspective can be useful.

If the blockspace is secure, that means a blockchain has strong security and decentralization properties. There are less chances for hacks or exploits.

If the blockspace is highly available, that means the blockchain has more capacity and throughput to process more transactions.

https://www.generalist.com/briefing/blockspace

In this 100th episode we do something special. We look at the Bitcoin whitepaper and summarize the key points. We understand what are the design goals and the problems to solve for Bitcoin.

You can read the full Bitcoin whitepaper here - https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf.

Thank you for your support till 100 episodes.

Music: https://www.purple-planet.com

In this episode we understand what is latency in blockchains and how it relates to throughput. We also look at various factors and variables impacting the latency and throughput in blockchains.

Music: https://www.purple-planet.com

In this episode we understand what are Intents in blockchains and how they are different from transactions. We also understand the different usage and needs of intent based approach in designing blockchain applications.

Music: https://www.purple-planet.com

In this episode we understand what are ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) and why they are used in Bitcoin and other crypto mining. We also understand their relation with the hash power based proof of work systems.

Music: https://www.purple-planet.com