2022-05-25 20:16:40
Web3 can be a bit difficult to understand.
Before #PolygonAvail launches soon, we wanted to share an analogy to help you with an often misunderstood web3 primitive: rollups, and their evolved form, validiums.
Start your engines!
RT:
https://twitter.com/0xPolygon/status/1529510847264849922
Modular blockchains work a bit like cargo trucks picking up freight, and traveling up a steep hill.
Drivers have to inspect every transaction before they're loaded.
Once loaded, those drivers have to take every transaction to the blockchain.
But the more transactions are in the truck, the heavier they are.
But the heavier they are, the more gas they need. And gas is expensive!
The same drivers taking the txs up the hill are the ones that have to check and that slows down the whole network.
Instead...
Imagine there were dedicated people that could check each tx before drivers even showed up.
And instead of having to carry all the txs up the hill, drivers could store them downhill and just carry a log of exactly where they live.
This is the world Avail creates.
In a modular world, transactions are taken to execution environments to be checked before Ethereum drivers even arrive.
This is what is meant by "off-chain execution".
In return, these execution environments sign off on that batch of txs. These are "proofs of execution".
Congratulations, we've just built a rollup!
This alone speeds up blockchains like Ethereum substantially. Drivers don't have to wait or use up Ethereum resources checking txs before picking them up.
But…
They still need to be carried uphill. And as we know, that's expensive.
Instead, drivers can park transactions downhill, using a service like Avail. This is what we mean by, "off-chain data availability".
In return, Avail gives drivers a log anyone can use to find txs if they want to find them. This is a "proof of availability".
With transactions already checked, and no need to take txs to the main chain, drivers only have to carry two things:
1)
A proof of execution: to prove txs have been checked
2)
A proof of availability: so anyone can find txs off the main chain
Congratulations, we've just built a validium!
The best part is that these two proofs cost substantially less gas to carry to the main chain than all individual transactions would.
And because drivers don't have to execute anything ahead of time... no more traffic jams!
To summarize...
Rollup: Execution off-chain, data availability on-chain.
Validium: Execution off-chain, data availability off-chain.
That's it. Things can get more complex from here if you want, but we hope that's a solid intro to the space.
#PolygonAvail enables many more things than just Validiums (We didn't even get into the Data Availability Problem).
But we'll save that for future posts.
If you’re interested in turning your rollup into a Validium, you can learn more here:
https://blog.polygon.technology/category/polygon-solutions/polygon-avail/
1.3K viewsedited 17:16
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