Vladimir Maslyakov is an Everscale initial member and key contributor to the Everscale Strategic Committee. Recently, he appeared on a podcast to discuss the various generations of blockchain, and where Everscale fits into this.
Here are some of the highlights from this informative chat!
Over more than 10 years of development in the blockchain space, it is possible to trace how different generations of blockchain have evolved as new challenges for the industry have emerged. As a result, five generations of blockchain can now be identified.
The first generation blockchains
The first-generation of blockchains include Bitcoin and its various forks, Litecoin, and other chains based on Proof of Work (and partially on Proof of Stake from 2012–2015). This generation of blockchain does an excellent job of transferring value.
Second-generation blockchains
Second-generation blockchains can include blockchains that have made the transition from purely transactional mechanics and transfer of value to the execution of smart contracts. This generation of blockchains emerged with functionality to perform Turing complete programs, and includes Ethereum and other such similar platforms.
Third-generation blockchains
Third-generation blockchains include Proof-of-Stake blockchains with more advanced throughput and faster time to finality. Solana and Cardano are prime examples of this blockchain type.
Fourth-generation blockchains
Fourth-generation blockchains not only have a wide throughput channel and low TTF (time to finality) but also have some sort of parallelization enabling the ability to ramp up that channel’s throughput. Typical examples of this generation are Polkadot, Avalanche, and Elrond. In this generation of blockchain, the first sharding, that is, the actual parallelization of computation by some parameter, either data or computation, begins to emerge.
Everscale is a fifth-generation blockchain
And finally, the fifth generation of blockchain is represented by Everscale. Fifth generation chains don’t just allow linear sharding, but do it dynamically as loads increase. This means as the number of transactions in the network increases and the blockchain’s throughput approaches its limit of executing, then the required number of transactions (or the latency or time to finality) increases for whatever reason, new nodes/validators are added. The network throughput increases approximately linearly according to the number of validates added.
Due to this dynamic architecture, Everscale can safely scale, while maintaining a high level of decentralization, up to millions of transactions per second.
In addition, it was noted Everscale intends to continue to develop as an open system. Work is underway to develop the virtual machine in the direction of distributed storage on blockchain, among other things. At the same time, it is worth noting that Everscale has already created technology that allows for a large number of low cost microtransactions and technically creates complex use cases on its blockchain, such as CBDC, distributed messengers, decentralized social media, banking services, complex auctions, generative NFT collections, a complete decentralized exchange with an order book and other technologically advanced products and features to look forward to!
