Neblio, an enterprise-level blockchain platform, has a scheduled network upgrade in the fourth quarter of 2018 that will show significant improvements in transactions per second (TPS) and its ability to support integrated enterprise applications. This network upgrade will enable Neblio to scale more efficiently. The Neblio team has dubbed the network upgrade “Tachyon”, named after the faster-than-light particle.

Blockchain Scaling

A major limitation facing current blockchain technology is the lack of available scaling solutions. Scaling is a multifaceted issue, requiring reductions in the amount of physical space required to store the blockchain while allowing for increased data and transaction rates to be recorded onto the chain. All of the biggest cryptocurrencies have faced scaling issues, sometimes manifesting as large and public schisms that threaten to divide their respective communities.

As the usage of blockchain increases there is increased demand to fit data into each block. This competition for space within a block leads to rising fees for each transaction and can cause long delays from when transactions are made to when the data is written into a block.

Tachyon is Neblio’s effort to provide scaling solutions before scaling issues become prevalent on their chain. These network upgrades are focused on upgrading the fundamental aspects of their blockchain — mainly block size and block time. Since August 1st, 2018 the network upgrade has been actively running on the testnet Neblio network.

Block Size

The maximum size of Neblio blocks will be seeing an increase 8 fold, from 1MB to 8MB blocks. In addition to increasing the amount of transactions that can be included in a block, this has a significant impact on the amount of data that a developer can write to the chain in a given block. Each Neblio block will be dynamically sized which helps to eliminate the hard drive space taken up by the chain if blocks aren’t completely filled. For developers, there was an increase in the OP_RETURN field, which now allows for 4096 bytes of data to be included with a transaction. This field can be used to store additional data of any type, from audio to image or even documents or encrypted data for use by a specific application.

Block Time

In addition to the increase in block size, the target block time will be quartered, from 2 minutes to 30 seconds per block. This will allow for a 4x increase in TPS. This decrease in block time will result in the generation of more blocks, which will likewise decrease the amount of time that it will take for stakers to generate blocks. This will be a boon to smaller investors, who may have previously felt it would not be practical to stake.

Code Optimization

In addition to the above mentioned, there were various optimizations that were made to the code which allowed for a total of a 4x increase in TPS.

Hard Fork

The Tachyon is a hard fork, which will form a separate branch of the Neblio chain. The hard fork will require all Neblio users to upgrade their wallets as existing wallets will become outdated. Obsolete wallets won’t be able to generate new NEBL and will not be contributing their coins and hashpower to the overall Neblio network security. The hard fork is already active on the Neblio testnet, and the hard fork will go live on the Neblio mainnet in Q4 2018.

Staking Wallet NTP-1 Support

Neblio Token Protocol-1 (NTP-1), Neblio’s version of non-fungible tokens akin to Ethereum’s ERC-721 token, will at last be getting native support in the Neblio staking wallets, nebliod and neblio-qt. NTP-1 tokens currently are only supported via the Orion wallet, which is a web-based application that allows users to create and interact with NTP1 tokens. This wallet upgrade will enhance the Neblio ecosystem, integrating the NTP-1 protocol into the staking wallet, allowing users to manage all of their tokens from a single, proven, interface.

The new staking wallet also introduces Remote Procedure Call (RPC) support for the Neblio wallet. RPC is used by many other wallets, including both Neblio and Bitcoin, and is heavily used by existing blockchain programs and applications. Of note, many exchanges use RPC to manage their coins and tokens for other cryptocurrencies which can help facilitate exchange adoption for NTP-1 tokens. It also removes the dependency of NTP-1 on any Neblio API server. NTP-1 support in the staking wallets will be available shortly before Tachyon is rolled out to mainnet.

Tachyon will also have a significant impact on NTP1 tokens. As previously mentioned, the OP_RETURN field will be expanded, which allows greater degrees of freedom for NTP1 tokens. The increase allows for increased amount of metadata that can be included in each NTP1 token. And, because NTP1 tokens can be uniquely identified, it allows for developers to create larger data sets that are written or read off the chain, such as video game character data or save states. The shortened blocktime can enable NTP1 tokens to be more efficient in specific use cases, such as gambling or payment protocols.

More about Tokens

One of the reasons Neblio’s tokens are so much more robust than the competition is because most platforms are not specialized token platforms. For the most part they are manipulating smart contracts to create tokens, which works until it doesn’t, and it can lead to issues such as a skilled hacker printing more tokens that they can then unload on exchanges before traders see the issue. Anywhere that the smart contract could fail is a potential attack vector for bad actors.

Neblio tokens are given unique names and tickers which cannot be duplicated on the network. Before the upgrade all tokens were hosted on the Orion servers which made enforcement of this rule simple. In order to expand token usability and storage options, the tokens had to be made compatable with staking wallets which required a new database as the old one could not enforce uniqueness outside the Orion wallet. This new database proved to be a challenge to do in a fully decentralized manner but it was necessary to prevent scam duplicate ticker tokens, reliance on centralized servers and unpredictable future forking issues, and it also solves problems inherited from the original Bitcoin codebase.

About Neblio

Neblio is a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain platform, focused on delivering enterprise blockchain solutions through comprehensive and intuitive RESTful APIs. Neblio’s APIs are in eight of the most common programming languages, allowing new and legacy applications to easily publish and interact with the Neblio blockchain. Neblio also offers token support using their NTP-1 tokens, allowing a wide variety of use cases for their blockchain. As a PoS blockchain, the Neblio network is secured by users storing their Nebl in staking wallets.