Ethereum researchers are exploring new ways to improve Ethereum and introduced a solution called Snark-based side chain which could scale the network to 17,000 transactions per second.

The researcher’s Authors BarryWhitehat, Harry R, Alex Gluchowski, Yondon Fu, and Philippe Castonguay introduced a solution similar to Plasma, a snark-based side that is an off-chain solution which would allow users to send and receive tokens outside the Ethereum mainnet. This new finding allows tens of thousands of transactions per second.

Snark-Based chain operators are responsible for closing a channel of transactions and uploading it to the mainnet of Ethereum as a single transaction. That means, before the release of a channel that is composed of many thousand transactions made between users on the Ethereum network, users can request withdrawals at the smart contract level. If the operator fails to serve this queue inside a given time limit, they assume data is unavailable. The operator is removed, and new operators are introduced. The researchers explain that:

“The operator is forced to process requests in the priority queue. Otherwise, they are slashed. If they refuse to operate the snark side of the system, they are still forced to allow priority queue exists. Therefore, the system will degrade to an on-chain token if the operator becomes malicious”.

However, operators with malicious intent could deny the withdrawal of funds in the channel and potentially destroy the channel that holds a large amount of data. The system has a built-in the protocol that punishes and replaces these kinds of operators. The channel gets downgraded to an on-chain token disallows any further alternations to be made on the channel.

To put it simply, the developers will implement a second layer to Ethereum, snark-based chain that allows users to send and receive payments at a large capacity.

The proposal is very interesting given the fact that Vitalik Buterin, two weeks back, announced a way for Ethereum to be able to process 500 transactions per second by using Zk-snarks. It is a method of cryptography, part of which allows large amounts of information to be compressed into what is called a “succinct proof”, which remains the same size regardless of the amount of input there is.

Many argue that Ethereum have scaling issues but the technology is under constant development and new solutions find their ways to the surface and scale the network gradually. However, Ethereums network cannot currently handle transactions from millions of users, but that might change in the future. Scalability will improve as the entire blockchain ecosystem see improvements which will lead to adoption.

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