In the fast-evolving landscape of blockchain technology, scalability remains a paramount concern. At Minima, we are addressing this challenge through innovation with our groundbreaking parallel architecture. In this technical blog, we delve deep into the parallel aspects of Minima that propel us beyond traditional Proof-of-Work (PoW) chains, offering unparalleled scalability and efficiency to our global community & partners.
Parallel Block Processing: A Paradigm Shift
Imagine that Block Processing is represented by a truck, carrying apples, travelling along a road.
The apples represent transactions on your blockchain and for every apple you transport along the road - 1 transaction is processed.
Now let’s say the truck can carry 1000 apples and takes 1 hour to travel along the road.
So - in this example - you can process 1000 transactions per hour.
Simple.
Now let's say you want to increase this or do it faster. What can you do?
-
You can make the truck bigger. This way you can put more apples in it and process more transactions. This can be thought of as a blocksize increase
-
You can make the truck go faster. This way you can travel faster along the road and process more transactions. This can be thought of as a CPU speed upgrade.
Neither of these solutions are great…
- There is a limit to the size a truck can be and safely be on the road. Having huge blocks means most users cannot keep up and are kicked off the network.
- There is a limit to the speed a truck can go. You cannot just double the speed of the truck whenever you want. Computers cannot simply double in raw power whenever you want.
And so even if used together there are real-world limits imposed on this type of scaling.
But there is a 3rd way. A very easy, scalable, safe way.
- Use more trucks.
They can be normal size, they can travel at normal speeds.
They run in PARALLEL. This is the trick. You can run 10 trucks on the road at the same time, and increase transaction throughput by a factor of 10.
No special large super-fast trucks required. Great!
…
This is known as parallel processing and is a very old and well-understood part of Computer Science. Most computers and especially phones already have multiple CPU cores - BUT importantly - your program needs to work in such a way as to be compatible with parallel architecture. Not just any system is… (Looking at you ETH!)
Minima is devised in such a way.
Minima processes block transactions in parallel. In this way, even low-end devices can keep up with high transaction throughput.
Parallel Transaction Processing: Efficiency in Action
Minima utilises the UTXO model, meaning that transactions in a block are processed in parallel, as opposed to the nonce-driven sequential way that you see on ETH.
Minima was not the first to use this of course (hat-tip to Bitcoin!), but it is massively important to chain efficiency. In a sequential system, the chain halts until the problem transaction is resolved or removed from the block. But with the parallel processing that UTXO offers, It means that if any one transaction in a block fails, the remaining transactions in the block will proceed regardless.
Parallel Application Ecosystem: Scaling the Future of Decentralised Applications
Smart contracts are the backbone of Minima’s decentralised applications (MiniDapps), driving innovation and enabling a myriad of use cases across the blockchain ecosystem. With Minima's parallel ecosystem approach, we usher in a new era of scalability with our MiniDapps.
How does Minima do this? Let’s compare to the popular Metamask application. In order to achieve a degree of decentralisation it utilises Infura. Every instance of Metamask has to talk to this third-party to enable the Metamask user to perform their desired tasks. It works well, but this isn’t true decentralisation. If Infura were to go down, so too would Metamask.
Minima however has no such third-party reliance. Every node is its own Infura-like instance, with every MiniDapp operating individually on a node, in parallel with every other. If something like MetaMask were operating as a Minima MiniDapp and a node went down, the music wouldn’t stop. No, the system would just keep infinitely scaling regardless.
Conclusion: Pioneering Scalability Through Parallelism
At Minima, parallelism isn't just a concept—it's a cornerstone of our mission to redefine the future of blockchain technology. Through parallel block processing, parallel transaction processing & MiniDapp ecosystem parallelism, we are charting new frontiers in scalability and efficiency.