Blockchain Transaction Architecture to Unstick Mempool Transactions
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Solution Overview
Problem
The increasing number of transactions on blockchain networks leads to congestion, causing transactions with lower fees to be stuck in miners' mempools for hours or days, and existing solutions like Child Pays for Parent and Replace by Fee are not effective in all cases, especially for cryptocurrency exchanges with many transaction outputs.
Innovation Solution
A two-transaction approach where a first transaction is broadcast with a nominal fee, followed by a placeholder transaction with a higher fee to increase the chances of inclusion in a block, allowing the first transaction to be unstuck even when congestion occurs and other solutions are not viable.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of energy
If transactions are included in blocks based on fee priority, then miners can maximize their revenue, but transactions with lower fees get stuck in the mempool for hours or days
Solution Approach 1:
The solution segments a single transaction into two separate transactions: a placeholder transaction that reserves space in the mempool and a payload transaction that contains the actual data. This segmentation allows the placeholder to be prioritized for inclusion while the payload waits, effectively resolving the contradiction between fee priority and confirmation time.
Solution Approach 2:
The placeholder transaction is created and broadcast in advance as a preliminary action. It occupies space in the mempool and establishes priority for inclusion in the next block, ensuring that the actual payload transaction will be processed quickly once the placeholder is confirmed, thereby reducing overall confirmation time.
2Productivity
If the blockchain processes more transactions per block, then network throughput increases, but transaction congestion and mempool backlog worsen
Solution Approach 1:
By splitting transactions into placeholder and payload components, the system reduces the size of individual transactions in the mempool. Multiple small placeholder transactions can be efficiently processed and included in blocks, reducing overall mempool congestion while maintaining high throughput capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The solution extracts the critical prioritization function from the full transaction and places it in a minimal placeholder transaction. This extracted placeholder can be quickly validated and included in blocks, separating the priority-establishment function from the data-processing function, thereby improving throughput while reducing mempool backlog.
3Reliability
If existing solutions like Child Pays for Parent or Replace by Fee are used, then some stuck transactions can be rescued, but they are not effective for cryptocurrency exchanges with many transaction outputs
Solution Approach 1:
The placeholder transaction is created in advance with the proper fee structure and dependencies configured before the actual exchange transaction needs confirmation. This preliminary setup ensures that when exchange transactions with multiple outputs need to be processed, the placeholder is already in position to be prioritized, making the solution universally applicable rather than requiring post-hoc fixes.
Solution Approach 2:
The solution segments the transaction confirmation process into two independent phases: placeholder inclusion (which establishes priority) and payload processing (which handles the actual exchange data). This segmentation makes the solution adaptable to exchange transactions with multiple outputs, as each can have its own placeholder created independently, ensuring reliable confirmation without being limited by the complexity of multi-output transactions.
Data Source
AI summary
The present disclosure provides techniques for efficient blockchain transaction processing. In one embodiment, a computer system broadcasts a first transaction to a blockchain network for addition to a block in a blockchain. The computer system may broadcast a second transaction to the blockchain network for addition to the block in the blockchain, where the second transaction descends from the first transaction and includes a placeholder fee. The computer system monitors and determines that the first transaction has not been confirmed to the block in the blockchain for a duration of time (e.g., stuck in the mempool). In response to determining that the first transaction is stuck, the computer system may transmit a request to replace the placeholder fee with a transaction fee that is sufficiently high to cause the first transaction and the second transaction to be confirmed to a block in the blockchain, thereby unsticking the first transaction.