OPRR Flash Depth Data

Search Extension

Nervos Network announces roadmap for 2022: Advancing Layer 1 and Layer 2 related innovation

2022-02-28 17:18

Read this article in 18 Minutes

In 2022, Nervos will reach a number of major new milestones.

Nervos Network 2022 Roadmap

Source: Nervos

JackyLHH, Nervos Talk

Nervos Network has been achieving important milestones since launching, and last year was arguably Nervos' fastest year of growth with the release of projects like Force Bridge and Godwoken. With these important milestones in 2021, more projects will be able to take advantage of Nervos's more flexible and diverse multi-chain ecosystem this year.

Now, in 2022, we're taking Nervos Network one step further. Layer 1 and Layer 2 innovations are underway. Force Bridge is supporting more blockchains and new cross-chain Bridges will be launched soon, which will further enhance Nervos interoperability and expand Nervos' reach in the community. Finally, and most importantly, Nervos Network is at the forefront of cryptographic research and continues its efforts to transform and improve blockchain technology in order to lead the industry.

As you'll see in the roadmap, Nervos Network is committed to pushing the boundaries of blockchain technology through these milestones. All of these efforts are aimed at building a multi-chain solution that makes Nervos Network the ultimate platform for a diverse and thriving dApp ecosystem.

Layer 1: CKB

First major update to the CKB protocol

The first major update to the CKB protocol, which began development in 2021, is scheduled to be released on the mainnet in early 2022, following final community review and coordination. Lina (the current version name of CKB's main network) has been with CKB for over 2 years and is stepping down to make way for the new hero to be announced soon.

This update will lay the foundation for the Flyclient protocol and CKB light client. The light client is a long-awaited feature from CKB that has the potential to take the user experience to a whole new level without sacrificing decentralization.

The Nervos light client is designed with the Flyclient protocol to use minimal resources and is therefore friendly to mobile, Web, and embedded environments. Thanks to the PoW and Cell models, light clients are much easier to build on CKB than on other blockchains.

Second major update to THE CKB protocol

Starting with Q4 2021, the CKB development team has also begun work on the second major update to the CKB protocol, which is expected to be released on the mainnet in Q4 2022. One of the big upgrades this time around is ckB-VM.Risc-v V-Extension (RVV).

RVV is the key of CKB cryptography abstract method. With RVV, encryption algorithms implemented as on-chain scripts can run much faster in CKB-VM. This means that some costly encryption operations, such as pairing (the foundation of many zero-knowledge proof systems), will be able to be implemented on CKB.

This update marks another significant improvement in the development of Nervos Network.

At Layer 1, these two major updates to the CKB protocol are essential and will lay the foundation for increased scalability in the Layer 2 architecture.

Scalability and Layer 2

Axon

Axon is the Layer 2 side chain SDK created by Nervos Network. Axon development began with Axon Prototype ONE in 2020, followed by Axon Prototype two in 2021. Axon is designed for high-throughput applications such as gaming or social networking, while maintaining its own data availability layer. (Axon transactions are not stored on Layer 1's CKB chain.)

What we've learned from Axon's first two prototypes and from the launch of Godwoken points the way to further Axon exploration. In the current Axon design, the data availability solution is separated from the side chain protocol as a separate project. With this separation, Axon's first stage will be a simpler side chain in which UDTs (User-defined tokens) are pledged on CKB. This separation also makes many novel use cases possible.

With Axon, dApp developers can use the Axon toolkit to create and distribute specific on-chain UDTs on CKB, and on-chain UDT holders can pledge udTs to become validators of Axon chains or use them in axon-chain DApps.

Like Godwoken, Axon will be 100% compatible with Ethereum, and apps built on Axon have the inherent ability to support multiple chains. The Nervos team is looking forward to launching the new Layer 2 with a major event and plans to introduce the new dApp to Axon at this year's hackathon.

SMT dApp

SMT dApp can be silky scaled up, ready for mass adoption. In 2022, we will try to find common patterns to provide more support and tools for SMT DApps.

If Godwoken and Axon are generic Layer 2 solutions off the shelf, THE SMT dApp, based on Sparse Merkle Tree (SMT), is a highly customized Layer 2 application.sparse-merkle-tree Is a highly optimized, rigorously tested and audited library of data structures for the state aggregation tree in Godwoken that the Godwoken team introduced two years ago.

With SMT, dApp or Layer 2 can transfer its state to off-chain to save on-chain costs while maintaining state integrity. SMT can turn pure Layer 1 DApps into in-chain DApps between Layer 1 and Layer 2 (Layer 1.5). Applications already using SMT are Nervina's teamThings NFT, Lay2 technology launched & NBSP;Unipass V3, as well as & have spentDAS The team is about to launchThe child accountFunction.

In addition to the current SMT dApp design, Nervos researchers will extend SMT with additional optimizations to push theoretical limits and prove its optimality. The findings and other information will be published in 2022.

Developer-friendly zkSNARK

Privacy protection is one of the many challenges blockchain faces, and the need for zkSNARK is becoming increasingly obvious.

ZkSNARK, short for zero-knowledge Succinct non-interactive Argument of Knowledge, is a relatively new type of zero-knowledge cryptography that allows a party to prove that it has a particular piece of information, Without disclosing that information to the other party.

With thePolynomial IOPs for Linear Algebra Relations 2Launched at PKC 2022, the premier international conference in the field of public key cryptography, we are making steady progress in designing a more efficient and developer-friendly zkSNARK.

We will show you two tools for creating zkSNARK -- VOProof and VORAM.

Specifically, VOProof provides a simple and intuitive language to describe zkSNARK designs, and the compiler can translate this language into working code for zkSNARK. Based on the VOProof toolset, we developed VORAM, which focuses on automating the creation of RAM-based zkSNARK, a programmer-friendly computing model.

interoperability

Interoperability is one of the defining characteristics of Nervos in creating a multi-chain ecosystem. Nervos will also show additional interoperability improvements on top of the enhancements made to the trunk parts of Layer 1 and Layer 2.

Godwoken Ethereum compatibility

The Nervos Layer 2 solution, Godwoken, is in the spotlight at the end of 2021 with its high speed and low cost features. In 2022, Nervos plans to build on this with the next version of Godwoken and take it to the next level.

The latest version of Godwoken will be 100% Ethereum compatible and can offer greater convenience (such as full Metamask support), simple contract deployment solutions, and tighter integration with the existing Ethereum ecosystem.

In addition to Ethereum compatibility, the new version of Godwoken will improve the scalability of its Web3 RPC and improve data query and transaction performance to meet the challenges of a growing ecosystem.

Force Bridge & Cross-chain fluidity

The Nervos Force Bridge, which allows users to transfer assets between Layer 1 and Layer 2, plays an integral role in the development of the Nervos platform. Force Bridges also offers a big opportunity for blockchains with fewer DApps.

In 2022, the team will continue to expand more blockchain with the new Force Bridge, diversifying the community's ecosystem. This critical connection to other chains will provide the community with plenty of opportunities to leverage their assets in the Nervos ecosystem while bringing more cross-chain mobility to the platform.

research

Research is a key and fundamental part of Nervos. Every day, the team continues to advance in many areas of highly technical research to further improve the Nervos network. Through these efforts, such as helping to create the UTXO Alliance, Nervos will take additional steps in 2022 to enhance research in proof-of-work, expanding the UTXO model and payment channels.

Further enhance PoW

Nervos CKB (Layer 1) employs a bitcoin-like proof-of-work model (PoW) to achieve a consensus zero-compromise solution. The improved consensus model is called NC-Max, named after Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto.

Our consensus protocol NC-MAX will be at one of the "big Four Security conferences".NDSS 2022 On release. This result once again confirms our leading position in PoW security research.

Nc-max is not the end of the journey. Our researchers found some areas of improvement in Nervos CKB's current consensus mechanism, including the unreleased difficulty adjustment mechanism (DAM). In 2022, we will further polish DAM and prepare for its debut in academia.

Nervos also conducted a series of security analyses with various collaborators in academia. At the network layer, Nervos has identified a security performance trade-off (similar to that found in non-NC-Max blockchain protocols and blockDAG consensus protocols) that was previously thought to be unaffected by the trade-off. Instead, at the consensus layer, we will continue to explore the use of tools in ARTIFICIAL intelligence to analyze the security of consensus protocols and publish vulnerabilities in existing consensus protocols.

Extension of the Cell model /UTXO model

Nervos CKB (Layer 1) usesExtended UTXO modelAnd many important collaborations based on it. In 2022, Nervos teamed up with The Cardano research team. In collaboration with Cardano's research team, even at &NBsp;UTXO alliancePrior to its establishment, Nervos had begun a research project to compare the UTXO model with the account model.

Together we have achieved some initial results, but have not managed to formalize them into a full report. With the Nervos CKB tool chain now complete, we can prove the superiority of UTXO not only conceptually but experimentally.

We hope that this forthcoming paper will serve as an academic manifesto for the UTXO Consortium. Not only is it one of the earliest UTXO alliance products, but it will also, along with Nervos, promote the alliance to academia.

Payment channel network

Payment Channel Network (PCN) was always on our roadmap because we saw it as a necessary part of Nervos Layer 2. We created a number of prototypes over the last few years to test various ideas and see how we could combine PCNS with UDTS and other Layer 2 networks. In 2022, we will continue this progress.

Outlook 2022,

In 2022, we will reach a number of major new milestones, and Nervos is well on its way to creating more value across multiple platforms.

Each of the developments outlined in these key areas will take Nervos one step closer to achieving its overall goal of making Nervos networks as simple, adaptable, and scalable as possible.

In 2022, as Nervos continues to make major breakthroughs in the blockchain space, we'll be sharing more of Nervos's progress in the future.