Introduction of Ethereum Plasma Framework
A small introduction of Plasma Framework and Sidechain functions
The main objective of this article is to provide you all the information about the Plasma platform in a very easy and sequential way.
One of major point that needs to take in mind that Plasma is not any blockchain in itself or anything that contains the protocol of it. It’s a Framework that is used for building scalable applications on Ethereum Blockchain. Just like Express is a framework for NodeJS application, Hibernate is Framework for Java Developers, React Native is for Mobile Development (I think you get an idea what I am talking about).
There is already a large number of on-going projects that are using Plasma Framework. To understand Plasma Framework it is very important to understand blockchain in the first place and how it works. So to get an Idea about how blockchain works in itself I would suggest you go with this Wikipedia Explanation about Blockchain, So go through the given link else It will be a little hard to grab its concepts. I will be explaining things in most simple way so that even a newbie can get what's going on with Plasma. Once you understand its concepts I would like you guys to go through with this paper which is written by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Poon Co-Auther of Lighting Network.
Plasma is a big brain idea from these two people and even after solving a lot of problems there are few things that don't allow plasma to problems. Whatever I am going to explain is just a tip of Ice-Berg but at the end of this blog, I will mention all those problems and what possible solution people are trying to resolve those problems.
Blockchain had provided a great platform to develop decentralize application and the way it is evolving in the market it will grab a very large portion of the market on it and every organization who is currently working on it will create its value in millions.
If you look closely in the below diagram you will find out that cryptocurrencies transactions per second are much lower then fiat transactions or which centralize organization.
So the first problem is that the Current blockchain is much slower than then traditional(Centralize) system that we are using right now. To use blockchain in daily life usecase we need to achieve at least few thousand transactions per second or if we have to attract attention then we have to achieve more than 25,000 transaction per second so that the user can find a very accurate reason to use or move on decentralize application in the blockchain. Ethereum can only handle near around 20 transactions per second depending on the trading pool amount and network condition.
So for this, we have to make sure that blockchain should easily scalable and scalability is one of the biggest problems that we are facing in this arena. There are few solutions that are proposed about this but the problem with this solution is that they compromise one of any protocols of blockchain in any way which it should not.
The scalability issue in blockchain should be solved in such a way that it should not affect the current running blockchain system or its protocols because it can create a question over current running protocols.
One of the solutions for the problem of scalability is upgrading the entire blockchain which is also known as “LAYER 1” scaling. Other solutions are working on making changes in the currently existing blockchain called “LAYER 2” scaling.
With Layer 1 scaling changes are made in a base of the existing system.
Following are some of the examples of blockchain layer to solutions
(There also many other examples about Layer 2 which I have not mentioned because that will consume a lot of explanation … I will do that in future articles. But if you have any question let me know will Respond ASAP)
Plasma is the solution of the blockchain which falls under the “Layer 2” condition. To get working Layer 2 we first need to transfer data from one blockchain to another blockchain so if we are able to transfer one’s blockchain data to another temporarily then it is quite possible to achieve a great solution for Layer 2 as we know that there are so many transactions in blockchain in which no-one other than you and receiver are concerned for, like paying your coffee bills, electricity bills and many more.
This is very much similar to the concept of Sidechain. Take an example you want to send any user a small amount of crypto over Ethereum blockchain. When you initiated the transaction then it moved to sidechain but after confirmation of the entire transaction it transfers back to the main chain of Ethereum also if anything went wrong in the entire process of the transaction then that transaction is returned back to the user account or whatever the state is. It just like locking your transaction for a while which makes ensure that its totally on the network now for your data confirmation.
Challenges Solved by Plasma Framework in Sidechain
Taking data from the main chain or locking data on side-chain before making its confirmation on the main chain and when everything is done and then destroying that side-chain data is a simple solution and looks easy to achieve.
Also making the data process on Side-Chain also gives security issues.As Side-Chain is much more security vulnerable than the Rootchain or Mainchain. As anyone with some good skills can create fake transactions on Sidechain and if that happens then people can steal money using this vulnerability. But if you are able to create a consensus mechanism that ensures that uses sidechain while ensuring your data is safe on it. Plasma Framework does not use all of its features but using some core features makes sure that transactions should be cheaper and secure by making assets fall back to its rootchain if something went wrong in the sidechain.
In all of the conclusion, the blockchain that we are using are slow and expensive and to make it fast and cheap Plasma plays a very important role.
If you want more to come about the Plasma framework then hit the Clap button so that I can get your support for my next blog.
