As a seasoned researcher with years of experience in the blockchain industry, these recent events with TON have left me scratching my head and questioning its scalability solutions. The sudden popularity of DOGS has highlighted some glaring issues that need to be addressed.
1. On two occasions within 36 hours, the TON blockchain experienced outages, primarily due to an unforeseen surge in transaction numbers associated with a rapidly growing memecoin known as DOGS. The influx of transactions from DOGS caused network congestion, raising questions about the blockchain’s ability to manage high levels of activity and its overall robustness.
Over the last few days, there have been two major interruptions in the functioning of the TON blockchain. These disruptions were associated with the rapid rise and widespread adoption of the DOGS memecoin. The first issue took place on August 27, 2024, at 11:00 PM UTC, when the production of blocks came to a halt and resumed only at 3:30 AM UTC the next day, resulting in six hours of downtime. The second interruption started on August 28, 2024, at 7:19 PM UTC and lasted for more than four hours.
I’ve encountered some troubles with block production on the TON network at 19:19 UTC. It seems that the cause is the intense activity surrounding the minting of DOGS tokens, which has resulted in a heavy load on the system. The TON Core team is actively working to resolve this issue and we’ll keep you updated as more information becomes available.— TON 💎 (@ton_blockchain) August 28, 2024
1. Two instances of downtime occurred due to an excessive influx of transactions triggered by the popular DOGS token. This surge led to an astounding 20 million transactions within a mere 48-hour period, overloading the system and ultimately breaking the blockchain on TON. The Dog-themed memecoin, modeled after Telegram’s mascot Spotty, distributed a significant amount of tokens through an airdrop, causing network congestion. Additionally, the process of minting the DOGS token during the second outage added to the strain on the system.
Multiple verifiers found it challenging to erase outdated transaction information from the database, resulting in an accumulation of obsolete data. This buildup caused a breakdown in agreement among the validators, as they were unable to accurately process new transactions or keep their records of the blockchain’s status in sync.
In simple terms, one concern for the Toncoin network, like many other blockchain networks, is dealing with scalability problems, especially those related to sharding. Sharding is a method used to increase scalability where a blockchain network is divided into smaller segments or “shards.” Each shard manages a portion of all transactions, allowing the network to process more transactions simultaneously, thereby improving its overall efficiency.
In order for them to remain consistent, fragments (or “shards”) need to exchange information with each other. For instance, if one fragment processes a transaction influencing data within another fragment, they need to exchange messages to adjust their respective records accordingly. These messages help maintain that all fragments hold accurate and current data.
In periods of low network activity, communication functions well. But when there’s heavy traffic with numerous transactions happening concurrently, the number of messages exchanged among shards skyrockets. Handling all these messages becomes too much for the network, causing delays, slowdowns, or even disruptions in maintaining shard synchronization. Consequently, the system proves to be unmanageable as it struggles to cope with the excessive communication volume needed to keep everything running efficiently.
As an analyst, I would articulate the benefits of execution isolation this way: Instead of continuously coordinating activities among different network segments (shards), execution isolation empowers each segment to manage its own transactions autonomously. This independence lessens the requirement for continuous communication, thereby expediting processes when there’s high activity, as it minimizes potential bottlenecks caused by excessive interaction.
Specialized blockchain networks, often referred to as application-specific chains, take the concept a step further. These are tailor-made blockchains designed for specific tasks or purposes. By concentrating on a single type of action, these appchains can handle traffic more efficiently and bypass the problems that arise from trying to perform multiple tasks simultaneously on a single network. Illustrations of appchains include Polkadot Parachains, Cosmos Zones, Near Protocol Sharded Chains, Polygon Supernets, and Avalanche Subnets.
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2024-09-01 18:20