Blockchain and Ethereum’s scalability issue

Date : 2/4/22

 

Source: Ethereum

 

MLA Citation:“Ethereum Upgrades (Formerly 'eth2').” Ethereum.org, ethereum.org/en/upgrades/. 

 

Link: https://ethereum.org/en/upgrades/

 

Analysis:

 

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* Ethereums vision of how Ethereums 2.0 architecture will be**

 

During my research in the gaming industry in blockchain, I ran across multiple mentions of games having issues due to Ethereum's scalability issue, and how they plan on working on it. Since I originally wanted to base my blockchain game start-up on Ethereum as well. I headed over to the official Ethereum page and read into their ideas for Ethereum 2.0 and how they plan on solving the issue.

 

For context, one of the most popular blockchain-based De-Fi businesses,  Ethereum had recently been facing an issue of scalability. This is extremely dangerous since most small businesses such as CryptoKitties, Cipher, and Tech Culture use Ethereum's network to aid with transactions and such. In addition to these small businesses, Ethereum itself has thousands of users with currently ~119.2 million coins in circulation. And with the growing popularity of blockchain technology, Ethereum has been gaining more and more users. This is good news for everyone, but what happens when the once thought network of lightning-speed transactions slows down drastically. This is exactly what happened to Ethereum, which was not ready for a sudden increase of users in 2021. In today's Evidence of learning, I will explain how Ethereum has worked with this problem and what solutions they have found. find quicker and easier methods to make transactions faster while increasing scalability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the main ideas highlighted was the idea of a Shard Chain, similar to Polkadots Parachain, the shared chain will allow for the increase in scalability. The idea comes from the computer science term sharding, sharding is essentially the process of splitting the information on the database horizontally. This will allow for less network congestion and allow for transactions faster. In Ethereum, the database/mainchain will be split into smaller new chains called “shards”. Because there are more chains that hold less information, the speed and storage will be larger. 

 

Additionally, since Ethereum is based on an idea that utilizes the blockchain, many people must run the program to allow for speed of transaction. Therefore Ethereum's goal is to have the miner run only the chain, that the block is being mined on, instead of running the whole Ethereum database. This way it takes up less storage to run the software, making it easier for more people to run the software, meaning there are more miners in the system, allowing people to make transactions faster. Unlike in the past where in order to safely be a miner a whole computer would be necessary just for mining Ethereum. Now anyone can have the software on computers, smartphones, etc. This is incredibly smart because it not only increase scalability but in a way promotes the growth of the business itself.

 

Secondly, Ethereum 2.0 plans to adapt one of Bitcoin's most well know factors, the proof of stake. The proof of stake is essentially the use of smart contracts and mining to authenticate all transactions on the blockchain while providing certificates and proof. Ethereum plans on creating a Beacon Chain, the combination of the idea of the Shard chain and Proof stake. This will ultimately create a more secure, safe, and scalable version of Ethereum.

 

In conclusion, Ethereum 2.0 definitely has a very clever and smart way to combat the problem of scalability while also increasing other areas such as security. After learning about Ethereum 2.0, I would definitely be interested in establishing my small business on Ethereum 2.0. However, the only issue is that this idea is still being worked on and would most likely come out/be complete in the year 2023. However, in between with time I expect them to find more methods to make Ethereum better.

 

Going forward I will continue my research on the blockchain industry in gaming and learn about how exactly the process of minting NFT’s into game items.