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The Modular Trend of Blockchain
After The Merge, the development route of Ethereum is more and more inclined to the direction of Modular Blockchain. The main difference between modular blockchain and monolithic blockchain is that monolithic blockchain realizes four functions of execution, settlement, consensus and data availability at the same time in a basic consensus layer, while modular blockchain It is divided into multiple modules responsible for the realization of these functions. In fact, it is not only Ethereum that is planning a modular architecture: Celestia, which first proposed the idea of a modular blockchain, is building a data availability layer for Rollups based on the Cosmos ecosystem; Tezos is also embracing a Rollup-centric roadmap; NEAR is also Data availability sharding is being designed. This article mainly discusses the modular trend of Ethereum.
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In fact, the modular blockchain is essentially a hybrid expansion solution. At the 6th Blockchain Global Summit, the topic of Vitalik's speech was "The Rise of the Second-Layer Protocol Ecology of Ethereum". At the meeting, Vitalik believed that the Ethereum ecosystem is not simply Layer1 expansion or Layer2 expansion, but a mixed approach. The way of expansion. The essence of the modular blockchain is similar to the hybrid expansion of layer1 and layer2.
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The modular architecture design of Ethereum is mainly divided into four layers: execution layer, settlement layer, consensus layer, and data availability layer. At present, in many cases, the execution layer and the settlement layer are collectively referred to as the execution layer in the industry, and the consensus layer and the data availability layer are collectively referred to as the consensus layer.
pictureExecution Layer:
Responsible for processing on-chain transactions, executing on-chain orders and verifying transfers and execution of smart contracts, mainly based on Rollup. After the modular blockchain has developed to a certain stage, users usually interact with the blockchain based on the execution layer, including signing transactions, deploying smart contracts, and transferring assets. The execution layer addresses the scalability of the blockchain.Settlement Layer:
The settlement layer is used to verify the execution results of the execution layer such as Rollup, resolve disputes, and settle state commitments.Consensus Layer:
The consensus layer downloads and executes the content of the block through the full-node network, and reaches a consensus on the validity of the state transition, thereby providing sequencing and finality, and verifying the block with the PoS mechanism.Data Availability Layer:
Guarantee that transaction data can be used (guaranteed to be stored and verifiable and available). The data required to verify the validity of the state transition needs to be published and stored in this layer. Once a malicious block proposer detains transaction data, the data in the data availability layer can be used for verification.
If the current Ethereum is only a theoretical "world computer", then the modular blockchain is an engineering solution for Ethereum to become a "world computer".
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As we all know, The Merge is about the conversion from PoW to PoS, the merger of Beacon Chain and the original Ethereum main chain. In addition to The Merge, Ethereum is actually advancing The Surge, The Verge, The Purge, and The Splurge in parallel. The order in which these upgrades will be rolled out is uncertain, as they are happening independently and in parallel.
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The Surge is about introducing sharding, which will allow the Ethereum network to scale massively through sharding.
The Verge is about Verkle Trees to help optimize storage on Ethereum and help reduce node sizes. This upgrade will focus on optimizing storage through Verkle Trees, a mathematical proof that is an upgrade of Merkle Trees. By reducing the amount of data validators need to store on their computers to run operations, nodes will shrink in size and allow more users to become validators. This will further decentralize the network and improve security.
The Purge will reduce the hard drive space required by validators, as historical data and technical debt are eliminated. This means simplified storage, which reduces network congestion.
The Splurge is a series of tweaks to the Ethereum network, including various smaller upgrades to make the Ethereum network smoother.
Vitalik said that after completing the above five key stages, Ethereum can achieve 100,000 TPS, truly becoming the "world computer" he originally envisioned.
1、Proto-danksharding（EIP-4844）
Although the names of the above five parallel key stages rhyme, it may still be difficult to understand the specific planning of Ethereum in the next three or four years. If we talk about the more critical and specific upgrade events, we may be able to see the modular trend of Ethereum more clearly:
Proto-danksharding is a proposal to implement most of the logic and basic rules (such as: transaction format, verification rules, etc.) that constitute the complete Danksharding specification, but no sharding has been implemented at this stage. During the Proto-danksharding phase, all validators and users must still directly verify the availability of the full data.
The main feature introduced by Proto-danksharding is a new transaction type called "transaction with blob". A transaction carrying a blob is similar to a regular transaction, the main difference being that it also carries an additional piece of data called a blob. Blobs are about 128kb, much cheaper than Calldata of similar size. But the EVM execution cannot access the blob data, the EVM can only see promises to the blob.
At present, the block size of Ethereum is determined by the Gas capacity. After the implementation of EIP-4844, the number of blobs will become another dimension to determine the block size. Blob is a binary data structure with a size of about 128kb. The Ethereum block has a limit on the number of Blobs that can be accommodated in each block. The target number of Blobs is 8, and the maximum number can be 16. Therefore, each block An additional 1-2MB (128*8-128*16) storage space will be added.
Blob is mainly used to store Layer 2 data. Before that, Layer 2 data was stored through Calldata. After the introduction of Blob, the space available for storage in the block will be greatly increased. However, due to the large blob data, if an additional 1MB of blob data is added to each block, then the Ethereum blockchain will have several terabytes of data in a month. In order to solve the problem of rapid increase in data volume, these blob data will be It is stored offline and will be automatically deleted after 30 days.
2、Danksharding
Since the Blob data does not compete with the Gas usage of existing Ethereum transactions, it can still achieve a significant expansion effect. If you want to understand the EIP-4844 proposal of Proto-Danksharding in a relatively simple way, it can be understood as—Ethereum layer1 adopts 30-day short-term, offline storage in the form of Blob on the basis of maintaining a block size of 1MB. To store Layer 2 data, so as to achieve the expansion effect.
Danksharding is a new sharding design proposed for Ethereum. The previously planned sharding was state sharding (State Sharding), and later decided to use Rollups as the center of the roadmap. After implementing the layer1 (data sharding) + layer2 (rollups) modular hybrid expansion solution, the data sharding (Data sharding) was implemented. Sharding). Data sharding is essentially the idea of a modular blockchain. Ethereum is divided into multiple data shards, and each data shard is connected to one or more Rollups. Rollup is used as the execution layer, and Ethereum is used as the consensus layer and data availability layer. .
The core mechanisms introduced by Danksharding are mainly: PBS and DAS.
PBS (Proposer builder separation) refers to the separation of block proposers (Proposer) and block builders (builder) when building blocks. The Proposer proposes a block, and the Builder bids for the sorting right of the transaction and calculates the block header. The Proposer packages the transaction according to the calculation result of the Builder and writes the block header into the block to complete the block generation. The block proposer before PBS (Merge is Miner, and Merge is Validator) can maximize their mining revenue by checking which transactions are in the mempool and adopting some strategies to obtain MEV opportunities. After the introduction of the PBS mechanism, this role separation mechanism combined with the auction mechanism of Builder ranking rights can solve the MEV problem to a certain extent, and the final MEV revenue is equivalent to being shared by validators across the network. In addition, PBS also helps to solve the synchronization problem of fragmentation and beacon chain, the anti-censorship problem of the Ethereum network, etc.
In the end, Danksharding can realize the centralized block generation of Ethereum through PBS, the decentralized verification through DAS, and a certain degree of anti-censorship, so as to ensure that Ethereum becomes a scalable consensus layer and data availability layer, and can undertake Live more Rollups at the executive level. (PS: Centralized block generation and decentralized verification are also ideas for the future development of Ethereum proposed by Vitalik in Endgame.)
Summarize
Summarize
In fact, I have always felt that the founding team of Ethereum is very sentimental. There are many details that make me think that they will not forget their original intentions and forge ahead.
Among the previous upgrades of Ethereum, there are three upgrades that impressed me, namely: the Byzantine hard fork with a height of 4.37 million blocks, the hard fork of Constantinople with a height of 7.28 million blocks, and the hard fork with a height of 9.069 million blocks. Istanbul network upgrade.
Maybe Ethereum's modular blockchain road will not go so fast, but what is certain is that no matter the big theme, The Merge, The Surge, The Verge, The Purge, The Splurge, etc. aim to achieve 100,000 TPS The five phases are still specific key upgrades to Proto-danksharding and Danksharding. The ultimate goal is to promote the original intention of Ethereum to realize the "world computer".
Reference article:
https://notes.ethereum.org/@vbuterin/proto_danksharding_faq
https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/12/06/endgame.html
https://www.blocktempo.com/vitalik-say-merge-surge-verge-purge-splurge-are-all-happening-in-parallel/
