We have discussed two scalability approaches that allow for transactions to be made without burdening the underlying blockchain. There will often be multiple routes to a destination, and users will be able to choose the most effective one. Such a network evolves into a distributed topology where everyone connects to multiple peers. If Carol is connected to another participant, Dan, the same thing can be done. She will push funds to Bob’s side of the channel, who will, in turn, push them to Carol’s. If Bob has a channel open with Carol, Alice can pay her provided there is enough capacity. A network of these channels can be fleshed out, meaning that Alice could pay a party she isn’t directly connected to. However, special mechanisms can be used to punish any attempt to cheat, so parties can safely interact with one another without trust.Įvidently, payment channels are convenient for two parties that anticipate a high volume of transactions. Of course, the example discussed above requires both parties to cooperate, which isn’t an ideal situation for strangers. As far as the Bitcoin blockchain is concerned, she has only performed two – one to enter and one to exit.
Alice could enter the sidechain with a single Bitcoin transaction, perform hundreds of sidecoin transactions, and then exit the sidechain. There is no requirement for main chain nodes to store every transaction from the sidechain. Provided that users are happy with the trade-offs, sidechains could be an integral step towards effective scaling. This allows them to be used as platforms for experimentation and to roll out features that would otherwise require consensus from the majority of the network. Interestingly, sidechains could even have critical bugs without affecting the underlying chain. You could add in upgrades that don’t exist on the main chain, produce bigger blocks, and enforce rapid settlements. You could use any consensus mechanism, trust a single validator, or tweak any number of parameters. In fact, they don’t even need to use Proof of Work to function. Sidechains aren’t bound by the same rules.
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