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Question about alternative scaling solution

seascape

New member
Masternode Owner/Operator
I don't have a technical background so this question might be dumb - go easy on me please. Would it be possible or desirable to use a side-lattice as a scaling solution for Dash? Let me explain what I mean.

I have noted the recent popularity of DAG cryptocurrencies including IOTA and ByteBalls, but I am particularly intrigued by the functionality of RaiBlocks. In my own testing I have sent microtransactions between wallets in about 5 to10 seconds with zero fees, and the funds are immediately spendable. If anyone wants to try this for themselves just create a wallet at https://raiwallet.com/ . If you should need a little bit of XRB to play with just DM me your receive address.

Interesting though it is, I do see a couple of drawbacks with RaiBlocks. One is that there is no privacy. The wallet uses an account system like ETH and as soon as you send any amount of XRB the receiver can look up your wallet balance and all previous transactions. The other is that there is no block reward and no fees, and therefore no incentive to run a full node, especially one with expensive hardware which might be required if the network scales to capacity. Most users will use light clients like raiwallet.com. If the network were to grow exponentially and become mainstream I am guessing it would be necessary to run full nodes in datacentres. So who is going to front the cost of this for no reward? As there is no incentive structure there is also no possibility of a treasury and governance system like we have in Dash.

Dash's plan is to scale massively on-chain. Lightning Network has been rejected as a solution for Dash but I am wondering if a RaiBlocks-style side-chain (or 'side-lattice') could be a viable addition to our scaling plan. Maybe the Dash wallet would hold Dash and Dash+ coins. Dash+ coins would be created on the side-lattice by using two-way pegs to lock an amount of Dash, making it unspendable, and simultaneously creating the same amount of Dash+ on the lattice. Once on the lattice Dash+ coins could be instantly transferred and spent with zero fees just like RaiBlocks. As they can always be converted back to Dash (and burned) the overall supply of Dash and Dash+ would remain the same. The problem of spam transactions would be mitigated by requiring the sender to perform a little bit of PoW, just as in RaiBlocks. The advantage for the Dash ecosystem would be that it would greatly increase the potential number of transactions per second without bloating the Dash blockchain, and also open up new use cases due to the zero fees. I believe the limiting factor for RaiBlocks is the maximum throughput of the full nodes, which is about 7000 transactions per second. If the same side-lattice were to be adopted by another crypto like BTC or BCH they would have the same limitation, but Dash is uniquely positioned because of the masternode layer. I am suggesting that the masternodes would be required to host Dash+ lattice nodes in addition to their current functions, but regular nodes and miners would only need to run the blockchain as usual. As Dash masternodes will in the future be required to run custom hardware, the hardware could be designed to accommodate the requirement of the lattice as well as the regular blockchain. So Dash could get the benefits of zero-fee almost-instant transactions at massive scale while maintaining the advantages of governance and treasury funding that RaiBlocks can't offer. Furthermore, in contrast to Raiblocks, privacy can be maintained up to a point by moving coins back to the Dash blockchain and mixing - or maybe somebody would come up with a better way to employ the masternodes to maintain Dash+ privacy.

I am certainly not suggesting to replace the Dash blockchain and I think there will continue to be many uses for on-chain transactions, but I am just throwing out the idea to see if anyone thinks this sort of DAG side-chain idea has any merit. What do you all think?
 
i'm sure that if we reach a point where we are close to hitting scaling limits we will consider alternative yet proven options.
chasing every new, unproven tech or even idea now is useless. i don't get it.
 
i'm sure that if we reach a point where we are close to hitting scaling limits we will consider alternative yet proven options.
chasing every new, unproven tech or even idea now is useless. i don't get it.
I agree that chasing every option would be counterproductive. But waiting until hitting scaling limits before thinking about alternatives is not a good idea either - look at Bitcoin. I am just asking if something like this could work on a technical level and whether it is feasible.
 
I agree Raiblocks is interesting, but then again there are a number of interesting projects out there. I just hope Dash Labs is doing more than playing with nvidia cards. I think it's entirely plausible to run a parallel chain as a live test.
 
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