Slides from Berlin Blockcahin Day about undervalued problems in blockchain and brief introduction of Ergo solution

1. Ergo platform’s approach to
scalability, privacy and security
issues in blockchain
Dmitry Meshkov @ Berlin Blockchain Day

2. ● Scorex framework – framework for
blockchain prototyping
● IOHK research
● Scala libraries (Scrypto, IODB)
● Blockchain prototypes (TwinsCoin)
● Production blockchains (Waves, Mantis,
Topl)
● Ergo
History

3. ● There are good ideas to implement
● Almost impossible to implement them in
existing blockchains
● Slow adaptation of good ideas!
● Some problems are undervalued
Why Ergo?

4. Problem 1: light nodes

5. ● Regular user just want to receive and send
some coins
● With all the advantages of the blockchain
technology
Nodes

6. Nodes
Launch time
Security
Full nodeWeeks
Decentralized

7. ● Require blockchain processing from
genesis
● Very slow
● As secure as blockcain itself
● Low adaptation
Full nodes

8. Nodes
Launch time
Security
Full nodeWeeks
Decentralized
SPV node
PoW only check
Hours

9. ● Rely on PoW majority
● Keeps headers only
● Download full blocks from wallet creation to
get own transaction (slow)
● or request own transactions from other
nodes (not private)
● Can’t validate arbitrary transaction
● Unclear for PoS
● Medium adaptation
SPV node

10. Nodes
Launch time
Security
Full nodeWeeks
Decentralized
SPV node
PoW only check
Hours
Web walletSeconds
Trusted

11. ● Trusted third party that have processed
blockchain
● Almost instant
● High adaptation
● May be broken
(https://classicetherwallet.com/)
Web wallet

12. Nodes
Launch time
Security
Full nodeWeeks
Decentralized
SPV node
PoW majority
Hours
Web walletSeconds
Trusted

13. ● PoPoW – you don’t even need to download
a header chain to estimate work done
● Previous version implemented
Ergo solution (1)
Kiayias A., Miller A., Zindros D. Non-interactive proofs of proof-of-work.

14. ● IADD – authendicated dinamic state, that
allow to generate proofs of transactions
validity and state changes
Ergo solution (2)
Reyzin, L., Meshkov, D, Chepurnoy, A. & Ivanov A. Improving Authenticated Dynamic
Dictionaries, with Applications to Cryptocurrencies
Root N-1
PKA 36
Root N
Transactions
PKB 684 PKD 13 PKA 22 PKB 684 PKD 27
proofs
Full node

15. ● IADD – authendicated dinamic state, that
allow to generate proofs of transactions
validity and state changes
Ergo solution (2)
Reyzin, L., Meshkov, D, Chepurnoy, A. & Ivanov A. Improving Authenticated Dynamic
Dictionaries, with Applications to Cryptocurrencies
Txs + proofsRoot N-1 Root N
Light node

16. Ergo light node
● Light node blockchain: (~50 Kb)
● Light node state: 32 byte
Header Header Header Header Header Header Header Header
Root N

17. Problem 2: economy

18. ● Inflation, fees, etc. are hardcoded at the
begging
● Can it survive in the long term?
● Some discussions on forums, few papers,
no comprehensive research
● https://cesc.io - first attempts to study
crypto economics (just 2 month ago!)
Economy

19. Fees
Chepurnoy, A, Kharin V., Meshkov, D, . A Systematic Approach To Cryptocurrency Fees
Cost Proportional to Dominant in
Network Transaction size Blockchain for money
Computation CPU utilization Blockchain for contracts
Storage State size changes Blockchain for database
● Result fee = F(Nb
,Nc
,Ns
)
● E.g. max(Nb
,Nc
,Ns
)

20. Transaction resource consumption

21. ● In existing blockchains an element of the
state once created lives there possibly
forever for free
● Our fee model include price for storage
consumption
● Rent model – you pay for space-time
multiplications
● S(state) – price to keep 1 byte for 1 block in
a State
Problem 3: blockchain as DB

22. ● Still under construction
● Will be implemented in testnet 1
● Some parameters are fixed, e.g. there will
be at most 100M coins, at most 50M of
them will be issued during the first year
Economy of Ergo

23. Problem 4: smart contracts

24. Smart contracts

25. Problem 5: privacy

26. ● Good scripting language allows easy coins
mixing, ring signatures, ...
Privacy

27. Problem 6: scalability

28. ● On-chain scalability via Bitcoin-NG (or
another approaches, it’s not final)
● Off-chain scalability via flexible
transactional language
Scalability

29. ● https://ergoplatform.org
● https://t.me/ergoplatform
● https://twitter.com/ergoplatformorg
● http://www.slideshare.net/DmitryMeshkov
● https://twitter.com/DmitryMeshkov
● Dmitry.meshkov@iohk.io
Contacts