Block Collider intro – Solving Blockchain Interoperability Problem
Blockchain Interoperability
Currencies, tokens, smart contracts, the activity in the Blockchain space has skyrocketed. Ever since Bitcoin was launched, and after an early adopter phase, the current number of blockchains that underlie decentralized and not-so decentralized projects has grown by leaps and bounds.
I remember when I started studying the matter and following somehow obscure chats some years ago, how the number of players was very small, Ethereum wasn’t even on the map, the DAO was nowhere to be seen, Ripple was introducing its concept and Bitcoin was only used by a small group of individuals that passionately pontificated about the virtues of a pseudo-anarchic world where power was taken away from central authorities and re-distributed to the masses, who would rule themselves by aggregating their will in what it pertained to certain decisions.
Fast forward a couple of years and the world is full of meet-ups and conferences where there’s a large number of self-labelled experts who don’t really know too much about the matter at hand, who haven’t really understood that decentralisation springs from the passion of a small group of early adopters who form the fabric of a cultural movement, and is not a business. Gatherings are now full of jackets and ties instead of sneakers and tee-shirts, and the rallying cry is money, not a better world.
Whilst the above is a clear indication of the beginnings of mass adoption for decentralization and Blockchain projects, there’s a big elephant in the room undetected by all these new "apostles of the future", but very present for those at the true heart of decentralization, Blockchain interoperability.
The decentralized oxymoron
In a world where pure decentralization is at the heart of everything that is, power will have been re-distributed to individuals. However, in today’s yet decentralized infancy, we see how power is not being re-distributed to individuals, but to blockchains. This is creating an additional layer of pseudo-centralization that needs to be solved.
Decentralisation is basically leveling the field of everyone’s importance, this is, a system or “landscape” where every node has the same importance and weight. If we don’t factor this into an equation then a system isn’t decentralized, it may be distributed or pseudo-distributed, but not decentralized.
It’s obviously oxymoronic to transition to a decentralized world where power is re-distributed away from certain individuals and institutions only to be re-distributed amongst different blockchains, who obviously become an additional layer of disconnection from the present circumstance. If there’s one requisite for a decentralized world, that is the need of communication.
Where there’s no communication there’s no information flow, thus the impossibility of coordination, or decentralization in its last instance.
The above-mentioned, which could be flushed out extensively and of which its hyper-synthesis obviously lacks many of the angles and details that are needed for a proper explanation of the matter, is the highest hurdle to building a better wold at this point.
Solving the Blockchain interoperability problem.
There’s a number of individuals and projects which are working on solving blockchain interoperability; amongst them Gavin Woods with Polka Dot, The blockchain interoperability alliance and a handful of projects not yet known to the general public, not even known to the majority of the decentralized community.
All these aim at "pushing out" that big elephant in the room, but I’ve only seen one which is solidly en-route to truly solve it, Block Collider.
Enter Block Collider
Block Collider is a second generation blockchain protocol that consumes other blockchains with a proprietary unique algorithm thus creating an entirely new meta-chain.
Block Collider enables transfers, trades, and transactions between blockchains of all types regardless of the consensus algorithm these use.
Whilst a first generation blockchain is a blockchain made up of a sequence of blocks on one blockchain, a second generation blockchain is a sequence of blocks on one to many blockchains.
This implies that entries can be distributed throughout different networks.
With BlockCollider secured transactions can be bridged between blockchains without witnesses, trusted nodes or centralization of any kind as well as providing developers the ability to combine features from different blockchains across the system, guaranteed automatic smart contract execution and a number of other features that make it one of the safest bets for the future.
Bridging the block – How do they do it?
Without getting into technical depths, the Block Collider Multichain issues a block each time any bridged chain issues a block, thus, the number of Block Collider’s blocks equals the aggregate number of all blocks from all bridged chains, hence the Block Collider block velocity equals the aggregate velocity of each of the supported chains.
The above obviously comes with a latency problem given different mining velocities from different bridged chains, the way to go about this is to have a long block mining timing in the Block Collider chain. However, increasing block mining times has negative consequences for stale rates and incentives. In order to solve this issue, block mining is split from transaction mining.
Conflict between blockchains
If one of the underlying chains in a multichain has a conflict regarding what is the head of that specific chain, this problem or uncertainty will obviously spill-over into the multichain. One strategy to solve this would be letting the conflict “run” or pass through the multichain, forcing it to split and resolve thus subsequently having to split and resolve itself. Not an ideal context for a future where I foresee a rapidly increasing number of forks, thus the higher likelihood of head definition conflicts. This would obviously create a problem with the Collider stale rate, thus generating the appropriate context for discontinuous miner incentives, as well as additional conflicts pertaining to the resolution of the splits.
The way they’ve gone to solve the above is to “receive” any valid block from any of the underlying blockchains whose parent has been previously “received”, thus the height of the block isn’t substantially less than the highest observed block on that chain, with the threshold for recency varying for each bridged chain.
Mining the Multichain
The consensus algorithm used to mine on the Blockchain Collider Multichain is the “Proof of Distance”. This implies the use of a modified Nakamoto Consensus to determine the next head block.
The above means that the longest chain always is the correct one, thus miners work on extending it, however, Block Collider improves this concept by introducing an algorithm for the computational challenge required to mine each block which is based on string edit distance. This edit distance is then applied to both Collider mining’s, blocks and transactions.
Whilst most contesting projects working on Interoperability try to incorporate all competing blocks in a chain, thus creating a highly competitive environment, by splitting block mining from transaction mining, Block Collider provides context for two different “competitive environments”, hence generating the right context to reduce the need for computational power.
The above could be illustrated with an example whereby a vertically integrated industry is split between its underlying components or “sectors”.
Underlying Blockchains and Token Economics
At this point, the lack of information regarding its token sale in spite of news of its tremendous success doesn't allow study the economic aspects of the Block Collider token. However, it is known that the multichain will initially be operational by aggregating several major blockchains, namely; Bitcoin, Ethereum, NEO, Counter Party, Lisk, Waves and a seventh blockchain that hasn't been disclosed in order to prevent market manipulation of such chain.
The Block Collider ICO will issue one million "Emblems", each containing a basket of cryptocurrencies on 5 different blockchains. Each of the one million emblems will serve as a distribution vehicle for "marked Tokens". There's a fixed supply of 3 million Emblems.
After the ICO a miner's will be able to add transactions to the network depending on the number of Emblems they hold, which initially seems like a good way of limiting circulating supply thus increasing token price upward pressure.
Miner's will use Emblems to mine NRG (Non-Relational Graphs), the on-chain currency mined on the Block Collider.
Re-Cap
In essence, Block Collider is a major candidate to produce a platform that will play a role in solving the Blockchain Interoperability problem. I’m quite certain that their vision to develop a multi-chain protocol for launching stable coins, decentralized exchanges, and meta-contracts has a solid chance of being one of the future stars of the decentralized space in the coming years.