Partially-ordered blockchain parallel block validation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional blockchain systems face inefficiencies due to linear sequencing of blocks, leading to prolonged validation times and resource consumption, especially as the number of blocks grows to thousands or millions, and are prone to bottlenecks and single points of failure.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a partially-ordered blockchain ledger where blocks are arranged in slots instead of a linear sequence, allowing for parallel validation and execution of non-dependent blocks, reducing the need for sequential hash verification and enhancing peer recovery and query processing times.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If blocks are stored in a linear sequence with sequential validation, then data integrity and security are maintained, but validation time and resource consumption increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The blockchain is segmented into slots, where each slot contains a subset of blocks. Blocks within the same slot are independent and can be validated in parallel, while maintaining sequential ordering between slots. This segmentation allows the validation process to divide the linear chain into parallelizable units without compromising data integrity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a new dimensional organization by arranging blocks in a two-dimensional structure (slots × positions within slot) rather than a single linear dimension. This allows validation to proceed in parallel across the slot dimension while maintaining sequential integrity along the chain dimension, effectively adding a parallelism dimension to the validation process.
2Measurement precision
If blocks are validated sequentially in a linear chain, then each block's hash link verification is accurate, but the validation process becomes a bottleneck under high traffic
Solution Approach 1:
The validation process is segmented by slot, allowing independent validation of blocks within each slot. Since blocks in the same slot are non-dependent, their validation can proceed in parallel, eliminating the sequential bottleneck while maintaining hash link verification accuracy through the slot ordering mechanism.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent enables continuous parallel validation across multiple slots simultaneously, rather than waiting for sequential completion. Multiple peers can validate different slots in parallel, keeping the validation pipeline continuously active and maximizing throughput without sacrificing validation accuracy.
3Device complexity
If a centralized database is used, then data management and control are simplified, but the system has a single point of failure and limited access
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the simplicity of centralized management with the resilience of distributed systems by having all peers maintain and validate the same slot structure. The slot-based organization provides a common framework that simplifies coordination while enabling parallel distributed validation, merging centralized-like simplicity with decentralized resilience.
Solution Approach 2:
The slot structure provides a pre-established framework for fault tolerance. By organizing blocks into slots with explicit ordering rules beforehand, the system cushions against failures - if some peers fail, the slot structure and hash link verification ensure that remaining peers can still validate and reconstruct the correct chain state.
4Reliability
If all blocks are validated in sequence, then complete verification is achieved, but peer recovery time increases
Solution Approach 1:
During peer recovery, the blockchain is segmented into slots that can be independently downloaded and validated in parallel. Instead of sequentially retrieving and validating every block from the genesis block, a recovering peer can download multiple slots simultaneously and validate them in parallel, maintaining complete verification while dramatically reducing recovery time.
Solution Approach 2:
The slot structure enables preliminary organization of blockchain data into independently validatable units. When a peer needs to recover, the pre-sliced slot structure allows it to perform preliminary parallel downloads and validations of multiple slots simultaneously, rather than sequentially processing the entire chain, thus reducing recovery duration while ensuring complete verification.
Data Source
AI summary
An example operation may include one or more of receiving blocks of a blockchain from one or more of a neighboring blockchain peer and an ordering service node, identifying two or more blocks from among the received blocks that belong to a same slot within the blockchain, validating the two or more identified blocks in parallel via execution of the two or more identified blocks at a same time, and in response to validation of the two or more identified blocks, storing the two or more identified blocks on a local blockchain ledger of a blockchain peer.