Unleashing a World of Possibilities through the Metaverse: Pt 3

 


CAP Theorem and The Blockchain Trilemma
      The CAP ( Consistency, Availability and Partition Tolerance) theorem was formulated back in the 1980s. It states that any decentralized data storage (e.g blockchain) can satisfy only two of the three ingredients of the CAP theorem: Scalabality, Decentralization and Security.

The Evolution of CAP Theorem in Blockchain Trilemma
     The CAP Theorem has evolved into a blockchain trilemma. It means that a public blockchain infrastructure is meant to sacrifice either scalability, decentralization or security. 
     Scalability: The blockchain's scalability is its ability  to handle a greater amount of transactions.
     Decentralization: Decentralization is a type of network redundancy  that ensures  that the network control is not under a few entities.
     Security: It refers to the ability to secure data on the blockchain from different attacks and blockchain's defense against double spending.
 
Relationship between Scalability and Decentralization
     For settling a transaction, a blockchain network is required to validate it. If the system has so many members, it will take some time for validation to process. Thus, Scalability is inversely proportional to Decentralization if security parameters are identical.

Connection between Scalability and Security
     Now if two blockchains with same proof of work have equal degree of decentralization along with the security as their hash rate, the confirmation time will decrease with increase in hash rate. Similarly, Scalability rises with the improvement of security. This shows that Scalability is directly proportional to Security if Decentralization remains constant.
     Since all three components of the blockchain trilemma are unable to interact with each other at the same time, the blockchain has to make trade offs. e,g When Ethereum saw a spontaneous increase due to growth of DeFi (Decentralized Finance) applications. Due to this sudden rise in demand, transaction fees surged to a point where many were unable to interact with the blockchain.
 
              Ethereum and the Blockchain Trilemma 
     This is a classical example of the Blockchain trilemma where Ethereum was unable to scale without the sacrifice of security or decentralization. It is seen that blockchain belonging to some of the largest cryptocurrencies like Ethereum have very limited scalability.

The Role of Blockchain Layers in Increasing the Stability of a Blockchain
     Currently, work is underway for increasing the stability of the blockchain networks
The Layer One Blockchain has been designed for providing speed, security and expansion.
The Layer Two Blockchain refers to technological advancements and products for utilizing the expansion and scalability of blockchain networks already present. 
The Layers of Blockchain



     Not all the layers are covered here but we will consider some of those not discussed right now and a few others in the diagram above:

Hardware and Infrastructure Layer
     The hardware structure layer consists of servers presented in data centers. While browsing the web or using any app, clients request content or data from these application servers. This layer allows clients to engage in a (peer to peer)
p2p network. Like a computer network, its computers validate and record transactions orderly in a shared ledger. This results in creating a distributed database that stores all the transactions and data. In a p2p network, the computer is designed as a node.
 
Data Layer
     The data layer in the blockchain is present as a list of blocks linked with each other and transactions are ordered in them. The two fundamental elements of the blockchain data structure:
- Pointers    - Linked List

Pointers in Data Layers
     In the data layers, pointers refer to the variables referring to the position of another variable while a linked list is a list of chained blocks containing data and pointers connecting to the preceding block.

Network Layer
     This layer is also known as the propagation layer and p2p layer and is responsible for internode communication. A p2p network is a computer network where nodes are distributed to share the workload of the network for attaining a common purpose. This layer handles discovery, transaction and block propagation. With the p2p layer, it is ensured that the nodes can search each other for interacting, disseminating and synchronizing for keeping the blockchain in a legitimate state. 

Consensus Layer
     The layer is mandatory for the existence of any blockchain platforms. It validates blocks, orders them and ensures that everyone agrees upon them. It is the most critical layer for any blockchain platform.

Application Layer
     It is composed of smart contracts, Dapps(decentralized applications) and chain code. It is composed of programs end users utilize for communicating with blockchain networks. Other parts of the application layer include APIs(Application Programming Interface), frameworks, scripts and UI.

The Merkle Tree
     In the blockchain, the Merkle tree refers to a binary tree of hashes. Inside each block, there is a root hash of the Merkle tree and other information such as block's hash, block version number, current difficulty goal and timestamp.
 
Importance of Merkle Tree in Blockchain
In blockchain, the Merkle tree protects the integrity and security of the blockchain data. All transactions are signed by a private key and a public key holder can verify the signer.

 Benefits of Digital Signature
- The role of digital signature in this scenario is to detect any manipulation in information.
- They also ensure unity as the data is encrypted. Therefore any manipulation being made will result in invalidity of the signature
- The data cannot be tampered with due to being encrypted with digital signatures
   
     I hope you all enjoyed this article. If so, you can drop something in the comment section below. Peace


 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Unleashing The AI Arms Race: The Fierce Competition Among The Tech Giants

Image
         The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has ushered in a new era of technological innovation transforming the way we live, work and interact. As AI becomes increasingly integrated in our daily lives, the competition among tech giants to dominate this rapidly evolving field has intensified. Microsoft, Google, Meta (formerly Facebook ), Apple and a host of other industry leaders are engaged in a fierce battle to capture the vast potential and lucrative market of artificial intelligence. This article delves into the heated race among these tech titans highlighting their strategies, achievements and impacts on shaping the future of AI adoption.  Microsoft: Reinventing Productivity With AI         Microsoft, with its strong foothold in enterprise software and cloud computing, has been aggressively investing in AI platform and development. The company's intelligent cloud platform " Azure ", has emerged as a formidable force in the ...
Read more

The Pixel 7 and 7 Pro is Here: First Hand Impressions

Image
          The Pixel 7 and 7 Pro are a pair of android smartphones designed, developed and marketed by Google as part of the Google Pixel product line. They serve as the successor to the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro respectively. These phones were first previewed in May 2022 during the Google I/O keynote. They are powered by the second generation Google Tensor Chip and features a design similar to that of the Pixel 6 series. They are shipped with the new Android 13 update. The Pixel 7 and 7 Pro were officially announced on October 6 2022 at the annual Made By Google event and was released in the United States on October 13. The Pixel 7 and 7 Pro were previewed by Google on May 11, 2022 during the 2022 Google I/O keynote. During the keynote, the company confirmed that the phones would feature the second generation Google Tensor System-on-chip (Soc), which had been in development by October 2021. The phones were approved by the Federal Communications Commission(FCC...
Read more

Highlights of the CES 2023 Show

Image
       The Consumer Electronic Show (CES) was held this month at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States. This event typically hosts presentation of new products and technologies in the Consumer Electronics Industry. Here are some of the most important highlights from this year's edition.   iVision Dee Concept Car               BMW unveiled a wild color-changing concept car with 2600 panels that can change up to 32 colors. During a demo, different parts of this car including the wheel covers flashed in varying hues and swirls of colors. The technology which relies on panels that receive electrical impulses isn't ready for production. On the outside of the car, you could spot breaks between panels and what looked like wiring.   Bespoke AI Oven     If you think taking photos of your meal for Instagram is overdone, now you can livestream your dinner as it cooks in real tim...
Read more