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by retrac 1513 days ago
If there's some way to actually solve the scaling problem [1] meaningfully, it might have a chance to be more than niche. Broadly applies to Ethereum and all other existing blockchain systems too. Ethereum can handle ~25 transactions per second at the moment. Commit a namespace entry? Transaction. Send coins? Transaction. Any smart contract interactions? Transaction. The actual Web 3.0, where all our name resolution tables, and instant messaging, weekly paycheques, grocery purchases, etc. are logged on some blockchain, would need, very conservatively, tens of thousands of of transactions per second.

I do not anticipate a resolution to the scaling problem any time soon [2]. But maybe they, and me, are not seeing the flaw in their argument. Should the scaling problem remain intractable, I think that the existing major blockchains have peaked. Both Ethereum [3] and Bitcoin [4] have been pinned near their maximum transactions per second for years now. Further adoption can only come by displacing some other transaction on-chain.

(I'm operating on the assumption that off-chain non-blockchain handling of blockchain data is not actually blockchain for this comment. No keys, no ownership as the BTC maximalists like to say.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem

[2] https://datafinnovation.medium.com/sharding-is-also-np-compl...

[3] https://etherscan.io/chart/tx

[4] https://www.blockchain.com/charts/n-transactions-per-block
1 comments
mattdesl 1513 days ago
This seems to ignore Ethereum's rollup-centric approach to scalability. Many of those interactions you mention (such as sending coins, interacting with a smart contract) can be batched and, in a single L1 transaction, their integrity verified cryptographically with succinct zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARK/zk-STARK).

To the user, eventual UX is similar. Direct CEX on/off ramps to rollup, trading, DeFi, NFTs, smart contracts, etc. It is all "on-chain" by virtue of it being cryptographically verified on mainnet Ethereum (and, likely in less time than the finality of a single BTC transfer).

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randomhodler84 1513 days ago
Everything about eth scaling is just kicking the can down some other chain. L2 and Rollups are the same sidechain paradigm from 2014 with newer, more fragile math.

Payment and State Channels are the only true way to scale. Off-chain txs. Lightning network works quite well today for Bitcoin and I look forward to seeing entirely new paradigms evolve in time for Eth.

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mattdesl 1512 days ago
Lightning Network is a Layer 2. State channels also exist on top of Ethereum, such as Raiden Network and others[1].

The Eth core devs and users are more interested in rollups due to them being general-purpose[2], i.e. suitable for applications and smart contracts to build on top of (for e.g. Uniswap on a rollup via zkEVM[3]).

[1] https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/scaling/

[2] https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/05/rollup.html

[3] https://scroll.io/blog/zkEVM

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randomhodler84 1512 days ago
Ya, I know. kick that can down the road.

Not everything needs to be recorded for all eternity.

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