Blockchain Historic State Sharing with ECC and Hash-Based Recovery

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Solution Overview

Problem

Distributed ledger systems (DLSs) face challenges in reducing storage resource demands while maintaining data equality and processing efficiency, as they often store entire copies of blockchain data, leading to inefficient storage usage and potential data inequality among nodes.

Innovation Solution

Implementing error correction coding (ECC) to encode historic state data, dividing it into data sets, hashing, and storing hash values, allowing nodes to delete the original data sets and share encoded data, thereby reducing storage needs without compromising computational efficiency or data security.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If every node stores an entire copy of the blockchain, then data availability is improved, but storage space consumption increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedata availabilityVSAvoidstorage space consumption
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The patent divides the blockchain data into two segments: current state data (stored locally by every node) and historic state data (stored only by shared storage nodes). This segmentation allows nodes to store only essential data locally while relying on shared storage for historical data, reducing individual storage requirements while maintaining data availability.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces shared storage nodes as intermediaries between regular nodes and the blockchain data. These specialized nodes handle the storage and retrieval of historic state data, allowing regular nodes to access historical data without storing it locally, thus reducing storage space consumption while maintaining data availability.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Quantity of substance

If a few shared nodes store the entire copy of the blockchain, then storage space is reduced, but data inequality is created

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvestorage spaceVSAvoiddata equality
Core Design Contradiction:
Quantity of substanceVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The patent designs shared storage nodes to serve multiple functions: they act as both regular blockchain nodes (participating in consensus and validating transactions) and as dedicated storage nodes (storing and serving historic state data). This multi-functionality ensures that all nodes, including shared storage nodes, maintain equal rights and capabilities in the network, preventing data inequality.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

3Quantity of substance

If historic state data is deleted to reduce storage, then storage efficiency is improved, but data recovery capability deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvestorage efficiencyVSAvoiddata recovery capability
Core Design Contradiction:
Quantity of substanceVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent creates copies of historic state data and stores them on shared storage nodes. Regular nodes can request and retrieve these copies when needed, ensuring data recovery capability is maintained while individual nodes don't need to preserve complete historical data locally, thus improving storage efficiency.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #26Copying

Data Source

PatentEP3794770B1Shared blockchain data storage based on error correction code
Publication Date: 2021.10.06 ADVANCED NEW TECHNOLOGIES CO LTD
  • EP3794770B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3794770B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP3794770B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

Disclosed herein are methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for communicating and sharing blockchain data. One of the methods includes determining historic state data associated with one or more blocks created prior to a current block on a blockchain; performing error correction coding of the historic state data to generate one or more encoded historic state data; dividing, based on one or more predetermined rules, the encoded historic state data to a plurality of data sets; selecting one or more data sets from the plurality of data sets based on the one or more predetermined rules; hashing the one or more data sets to generate one or more hash values corresponding to the one or more data sets; storing the one or more hash values; and deleting, by the blockchain node, the one or more data sets.