Researchers Margarita Capretto, Martin Ceresa (IMDEA Software), Antonio Fernández Anta (IMDEA Networks), Antonio Russo (IMDEA Networks) and César Sánchez (IMDEA Software) present Setchain, a new data structure that improves the scalability of blockchains, allowing a larger number of transactions per block, leading to a reduction in risk and cost for users, at the 2022 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain.
Modern blockchains take the form of smart contracts, programs that describe the functionality of transactions. With them, users can observe the details of a transaction from start to finish, generating not only greater trust, but also greater efficiency, as well as more opportunities.
The introduction of the Byzantine consensus algorithm to avoid attacks generated a limitation in the number of transactions inserted into the chain. Therefore, there is a growing interest in improving the scalability of blockchains, i.e. improving the performance of the blockchain network to meet a large number of transactions. In this sense, the research team of IMDEA Software and IMDEA Networks has carried out a joint work that is reflected in the paper “Setchain: Improving Blockchain Scalability with Byzantine Distributed Sets and Barriers” and in the development of the Setchain application. The study is the result of a collaboration agreement between IMDEA Software, the Tezos Foundation and Nomadic Labs, with the aim of meeting the needs of the ecosystem and contributing to the development of Tezos technology.
According to Margarita Capretto, pre-doctoral researcher at the IMDEA Software Institute, “right now a blockchain like Ethereum only allows 8000 transactions per minute while VISA, for example, reaches 100000. The difference is uncanny. That’s why we have worked to create an application that allows us achieve a breakthrough in this aspect and which can also be applied to any blockchain, not just Tezos”.
“The biggest advantage of Setchain versus classic blockchains is the scalability”, explains Antonio Fernández Anta, research professor at the IMDEA Networks Institute. The result of their research shows that if barriers (a conceptual visualization of the boundary between blocks) are not needed too often (no more than once per second), “Setchain allows millions of new transactions to be added, while blockchains can usually only add to thousands.”
He adds, “Setchain makes it possible to store transactions permanently and reliably, introducing order between transactions when it is indispensable. It can be used instead of blockchains when total order between records or transactions is not required, as the order in this application is enforced when it is important to introduce barriers between sets of records.” Setchain achieves ordering of the blocks in the chain without requiring the transactions within the blocks to be ordered. The process works more efficiently and saves money for blockchain users.
Next step
The authors of the study believe that Setchain can be used to implement a solution for so-called front-running, which is the act of observing a transaction request and maliciously injecting another one exactly like the one before the observed one is executed, in order to make a profit. This is achieved by paying a higher fee to a miner. Mempools are responsible for encoding the information about what is happening in the blockchains, so anyone observing this data can predict the following transactions and act in their favor.
Fernández Anta warns that although Setchain’s application “are systems used by multiple entities that must cooperate and may have conflicting interests, Setchain will provide them with a repository that allows them to share data without the risk of any of them manipulating it to their advantage” .
IMDEA Software and IMDEA Networks’ research team believe that their application can detect front-running and act as a mechanism to build a more efficient Mempool that encrypts transaction requests using multisignature. Research professor Antonio Fernández Anta comments that the main conclusion they have reached is precisely that “in blockchains, the total order requirements are often too restrictive, when most applications do not need them. Relaxing these requirements can lead to huge performance gains”.
