Blockchain Size - An Unnoticed Time Bomb.
How EPIC Cash overcomes this threat with Mimblewimble.
The size of a blockchain is often an overlooked factor when it comes to short-term gains and the acceptance of a project. The impact of blockchain size on decentralization and network security is therefore often seen as just an insignificant technical detail that developers and technical experts can certainly solve in the future.
One of the core ideas of blockchain technology is decentralization, which stands for its ability to distribute control, resist censorship and provide security. The size of a blockchain plays a crucial role in maintaining - or undermining - this decentralization, as it has a direct impact on the number of full nodes in a network.
Full nodes are important participants in blockchain networks that download and validate the entire history of the blockchain and thus ensure the integrity and security of the network. In decentralized networks such as Bitcoin and others, any participant can operate a full node, assuming they have the necessary hardware, and thus participate in the network without having to rely on third parties.
As the blockchain grows, both the hardware requirements to store the entire blockchain and verify transactions increase, as does the need for network bandwidth, as full nodes are constantly synchronizing with the network and downloading new blocks, which requires a reliable internet connection with sufficient bandwidth.
How future-proof a blockchain project is, whether decentralization will continue to increase, remain the same or decrease in the future, depends directly on the size and growth rate of the blockchain. One of the biggest challenges facing blockchain networks is scalability and the associated size of the blockchain.
Scalability refers to the ability of the network to function efficiently as transaction volumes and the number of users increase, without compromising performance or security. The fact that the three properties of security, scalability and decentralization cannot be optimized at the same time was described by Vitalik Buterin as the blockchain trilemma.
This is where Epic Cash, based on the Mimblewimble protocol, comes into play. Its innovative architecture offers an efficient and future-proof solution for both the blockchain trilemma and the increasingly important protection of privacy.
With Mimblewimble transactions, there are no traditional addresses as with all other blockchain protocols. Instead of fixed sender and recipient addresses, the protocol uses a secret key (blinding factor) that must be exchanged outside the blockchain between two participants in a transaction.
This procedure prevents outsiders from being able to identify the participants in a transaction at a later date by analyzing the blockchain, even by quantum computers that are theoretically possible in the future. Cryptographic procedures (Pedersen Commitments) also conceal the transaction amounts.
The “cut-through” used by Mimblewimble regularly removes historical transaction data that is no longer required without jeopardizing security. This keeps the blockchain very compact, which promotes the scalability and therefore efficiency of the network and also further increases privacy protection. The higher the transaction volume, the greater the impact of the “cut-through” on scalability and blockchain size.
Bitcoin (BTC), the oldest blockchain, currently has a size of around 600 GB, while Epic Cash (EPIC) only has 4 GB. However, a direct comparison of the blockchain sizes is not possible due to the different ages and transaction volumes, but comparisons can be made based on the transaction volumes and their sizes, which make the sizes and growth rates of the blockchains comparable.
Assuming the same workload and transaction volume, Epic Cash grows around 10 times slower than BTC. This means that with the same workload and transaction volume, the EPIC blockchain would only be a tenth of the size of the BTC blockchain today.
If you compare this with other privacy-protecting blockchains such as Monero, Zcash and others, the difference is even more drastic, as all cryptocurrencies that are not based on Mimblewimble have to establish privacy protection through memory- and computation-intensive operations, which is a “by-product”, so to speak, of EPIC Cash.
With the same workload and transaction volume as BTC, Zcash (ZEC), for example, would have a blockchain size of around 900 GB, Monero (XMR) well above 1 TB, an order of magnitude that only a few users could manage with their hardware.
The Bitcoin blockchain with over 600 GB already makes it difficult for many individuals with average computer equipment to operate full nodes. The larger blockchains become, the fewer people can afford to run full nodes, which inevitably leads to a concentration of control among those with greater resources.
To reduce the problems associated with running full nodes, many blockchains offer light clients or SPV (Simplified Payment Verification) nodes. These nodes do not download the entire blockchain, but verify transactions by querying full nodes. Although light clients improve accessibility, they are dependent on full nodes, which leads to dependencies.
As the number of full nodes decreases once the blockchain reaches a certain size, light clients have fewer nodes to interact with. This dependency reduces the resilience and security of the entire network as control shifts to a smaller number of full node operators. Over time, this dynamic continues to weaken decentralization.
Decentralization is also about minimizing trust - the fewer parties you have to trust, the more decentralized and secure the system becomes. When the size of the blockchain becomes an obstacle, fewer participants are able to verify the integrity of the network itself. This concentration undermines the original goal of a decentralized system and can lead to increased vulnerability to attacks.
Several blockchain projects are already reaching their limits due to their blockchain sizes and are therefore exploring ways to manage growth. In projects such as Ethereum 2.0 with a blockchain size of over 1.7 TB, the blockchain is divided into smaller parts, so-called shards, so that the nodes do not have to store the entire blockchain, but can still verify certain parts.
Platforms such as Bitcoin's Lightning Network offload some of the transaction data from the main chain to a layer 2, reducing the growth rate of the primary blockchain. In some networks, pruning is possible, where nodes discard older, irrelevant transaction data after verification, reducing the storage load for the full nodes.
These are all compromises to mitigate the centralizing effects of blockchain growth. However, they cannot preserve the decentralized nature of the network if not all nodes in the network hold the complete blockchain. Trust is then placed in the few full node operators who can store and verify the complete blockchain.
In contrast, EPIC's compact blockchain means that users with fewer resources will also be able to participate in the network with full nodes in the future. This promotes decentralization, which further strengthens the security of the network.
Summary:
The size of the blockchain is a critical factor in the scalability and efficiency of a network. While Bitcoin, Monero, Zcash and many other cryptocurrencies each have their own strengths, they all struggle with the growing size of their blockchains. The more functions and unnecessary things a blockchain has, the faster it grows. If a blockchain exceeds a certain size, decentralization inevitably decreases, which goes against the very purpose of blockchain technology and represents a built-in self-destruction mechanism.
By using the Mimblewimble protocol, EPIC can optimize both storage requirements and network speed while protecting user privacy. By limiting itself to the pure monetary function with special privacy protection and no unnecessary gimmicks, EPIC is able to overcome the challenges of scalability while maintaining decentralization in the long term. Based on Bitcoin's DNA, with equal scarcity but additional privacy protection, EPIC can serve future generations in the age of digital surveillance as a reliable privacy-protecting store of value and means of payment.
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Can you please talk about POW and are there other consensus mechanisms that are more efficient than POW but are also private ?
I guess that paying fees to node validating a systematic cut through once a transaction is published would be a good incentive too.