Are blockchains truly distributed systems?

[Wind_FURY]

Yes? But in a "distributed blockchain network", it might the the opposite of "distributed", because every node must validate every participant's transactions/messages, taking the processing by themselves.

Have we misunderstood what it truly is?

[1714932657]

1714932657

[odolvlobo]

A distributed system has characteristics that include redundancy and autonomy. Anyway, debating the definition of "distributed" has little benefit.

[Wind_FURY]

A distributed system has characteristics that include redundancy and autonomy. Anyway, debating the definition of "distributed" has little benefit.

But the main understanding for distributed systems is "distributed load". Blockchain networks doesn't distribute load, it actually does it the reverse way because every node validates, and re-validates all transactions/messages.

I was merely curious. Sorry if it's a stupid question.

[pooya87]

it is the distribution of "power" not distribution of "load". the power to make decisions, enforce rules, keep the employees (eg. miners) in line with those rules,... the fact that each node does all of this on its own means they are not relying on anybody else and make their own decisions hence keeping the network decentralized.

[Wind_FURY]

it is the distribution of "power" not distribution of "load". the power to make decisions, enforce rules, keep the employees (eg. miners) in line with those rules,... the fact that each node does all of this on its own means they are not relying on anybody else and make their own decisions hence keeping the network decentralized.

I'm talking about "blockchain" classified as a sub-group under DLT, or "Distributed Ledger Technology", not the "blockchain governance" side of it.

Replication distributed system might describe better characteristic blockchain where all nodes do same thing (store same data, have identical/compatible rules, etc.).

Maybe sharding is what you're looking for since each nodes only verify and store some transaction/block.

Curious. What cryptocurrency has implemented sharding successfully, and how does transfer of value happen between shards?

[Wind_FURY]

Maybe sharding is what you're looking for since each nodes only verify and store some transaction/block.

Curious. What cryptocurrency has implemented sharding successfully, and how does transfer of value happen between shards?

There are few cryptocurrency which claim using sharding such as Ziliqa (ZIL), but i never check the implementation in details.

Because what I want to know is, if miners/stakers are required to have all the shards, or trust their peers for the integrity of each shard?

[mda]

Curious. What cryptocurrency has implemented sharding successfully, and how does transfer of value happen between shards?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5109561
None has implemented it though, otherwise BTLightning would have already crashed.

Because what I want to know is, if miners/stakers are required to have all the shards, or trust their peers for the integrity of each shard?

Miners mine all shards, users verify few, one or none.

[unsigned_long_long]

it is the distribution of "power" not distribution of "load". the power to make decisions, enforce rules, keep the employees (eg. miners) in line with those rules,... the fact that each node does all of this on its own means they are not relying on anybody else and make their own decisions hence keeping the network decentralized.

Great answer.

I think the next step in blockchains is distributing load - storage, CPU, network, etc. in a fair and trustless way, while maintaining the distribution in power. Blockchains such as bitcoin are vastly over-redundant.

[Wind_FURY]

Curious. What cryptocurrency has implemented sharding successfully, and how does transfer of value happen between shards?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5109561
None has implemented it though, otherwise BTLightning would have already crashed.

Because what I want to know is, if miners/stakers are required to have all the shards, or trust their peers for the integrity of each shard?

Miners mine all shards, users verify few, one or none.

All shards? Doesn't that NOT change anything except make a non-mining "full node" less than what is in a "non-sharded" blockchain?

it is the distribution of "power" not distribution of "load". the power to make decisions, enforce rules, keep the employees (eg. miners) in line with those rules,... the fact that each node does all of this on its own means they are not relying on anybody else and make their own decisions hence keeping the network decentralized.

Great answer.

I think the next step in blockchains is distributing load - storage, CPU, network, etc. in a fair and trustless way, while maintaining the distribution in power. Blockchains such as bitcoin are vastly over-redundant.

But it has to be.

[mda]

All shards? Doesn't that NOT change anything except make a non-mining "full node" less than what is in a "non-sharded" blockchain?

Yes, that and 1000x bigger transaction throughput, and 100x bigger market cap. All while security and decentralization stay unchanged.
But I guess the masses don't care much about security nor decentralization.

[Wind_FURY]

All shards? Doesn't that NOT change anything except make a non-mining "full node" less than what is in a "non-sharded" blockchain?

Yes, that and 1000x bigger transaction throughput, and 100x bigger market cap. All while security and decentralization stay unchanged.

I'm sorry, but now I believe you are just shitposting.

But I guess the masses don't care much about security nor decentralization.

But what you posted DIDN'T maintain decentralization, it simply redefined a non-mining full node to be lesser than in a non-sharded network.

[BrewMaster]

All shards? Doesn't that NOT change anything except make a non-mining "full node" less than what is in a "non-sharded" blockchain?

Yes, that and 1000x bigger transaction throughput, and 100x bigger market cap. All while security and decentralization stay unchanged.
But I guess the masses don't care much about security nor decentralization.

masses who don't care about decentralization and security also don't care about cryptocurrencies and instead stick to their banks and other centralized alternatives. this is exactly why every centralized altcoin so far has failed over the long run.

in any case could you give us an example of sharding that is currently handling 1000x bigger transaction throughput?

[mda]

But what you posted DIDN'T maintain decentralization, it simply redefined a non-mining full node to be lesser than in a non-sharded network.

Less storage and less bandwidth than now but control of emission is still maintained. Think of these shards as cloned altcoins with shared (and very high) hashrate.

[Wind_FURY]

But what you posted DIDN'T maintain decentralization, it simply redefined a non-mining full node to be lesser than in a non-sharded network.

Less storage and less bandwidth than now but control of emission is still maintained.

That didn't make any sense.

Think of these shards as cloned altcoins with shared (and very high) hashrate.

You said that miners/stakers are required to have all the shards. That is NOT sharding, and it makes a full node lesser than what it is in a non-sharded network.

[mda]

Less storage and less bandwidth than now but control of emission is still maintained.

That didn't make any sense.

User verifies all transactions in his shard to ensure that no extra coins are injected by miners - control of emission.

You said that miners/stakers are required to have all the shards. That is NOT sharding, and it makes a full node lesser than what it is in a non-sharded network.

We don't care about miners' wishes and requirements, through competition they will bear any block size as long as it brings in profit. Shards are created to accommodate reduced storage and bandwidth capacity of users.

These shards are detached from each other, basically being independent currencies. But it's not something unheard of, throughout history people have been operating in parallel standards - gold, silver, copper. In the USA there were multiple coins before establishment of the Federal Reserve. Even now people in borderline zones carry two or three sorts of banknotes in their wallets. So if a technically sound and scalable solution could long-term stop corruption and legalized theft then I would say these conversions between independent currencies/shards would look like minor inconvenience.

[Wind_FURY]

Less storage and less bandwidth than now but control of emission is still maintained.

That didn't make any sense.

User verifies all transactions in his shard to ensure that no extra coins are injected by miners - control of emission.

You said that miners/stakers are required to have all the shards. That is NOT sharding, and it makes a full node lesser than what it is in a non-sharded network.

We don't care about miners' wishes and requirements, through competition they will bear any block size as long as it brings in profit. Shards are created to accommodate reduced storage and bandwidth capacity of users.

These shards are detached from each other, basically being independent currencies. But it's not something unheard of, throughout history people have been operating in parallel standards - gold, silver, copper. In the USA there were multiple coins before establishment of the Federal Reserve. Even now people in borderline zones carry two or three sorts of banknotes in their wallets. So if a technically sound and scalable solution could long-term stop corruption and legalized theft then I would say these conversions between independent currencies/shards would look like minor inconvenience.

That doesn't change anything except make "full nodes" mean less than what they are in a non-sharded network.

Plus the complexity for what benefit? Do we stop trusting the consensus, and start trusting each node?

[hv_]

Less storage and less bandwidth than now but control of emission is still maintained.

That didn't make any sense.

User verifies all transactions in his shard to ensure that no extra coins are injected by miners - control of emission.

You said that miners/stakers are required to have all the shards. That is NOT sharding, and it makes a full node lesser than what it is in a non-sharded network.

We don't care about miners' wishes and requirements, through competition they will bear any block size as long as it brings in profit. Shards are created to accommodate reduced storage and bandwidth capacity of users.

These shards are detached from each other, basically being independent currencies. But it's not something unheard of, throughout history people have been operating in parallel standards - gold, silver, copper. In the USA there were multiple coins before establishment of the Federal Reserve. Even now people in borderline zones carry two or three sorts of banknotes in their wallets. So if a technically sound and scalable solution could long-term stop corruption and legalized theft then I would say these conversions between independent currencies/shards would look like minor inconvenience.

That doesn't change anything except make "full nodes" mean less than what they are in a non-sharded network.

Plus the complexity for what benefit? Do we stop trusting the consensus, and start trusting each node?

This is the best rabbit whole, where actually comes the trust from...

The distribution is just a model, that doesn't hold in real world as it gives full trust.

We have small , slow players and a few big ones. What is about now?

[zbig001]

In terms of performance, any P2P network that produces a single chain of blocks is not really a network.
It's a single computer in fact.
Because it can perfectly run on a single node, and adding more nodes brings no performance gain at all.

But if we don't just look at performance and want security and decentralization, then a P2P network (a kind of distributed system) is indispensable, obviously...
Adding more nodes improves decentralization (three is the lowest number required) although the marginal benefit gain decreases rapidly.
In terms of security benefits seem to be proportional to the number of nodes.

[Wind_FURY]

Less storage and less bandwidth than now but control of emission is still maintained.

That didn't make any sense.

User verifies all transactions in his shard to ensure that no extra coins are injected by miners - control of emission.

You said that miners/stakers are required to have all the shards. That is NOT sharding, and it makes a full node lesser than what it is in a non-sharded network.

We don't care about miners' wishes and requirements, through competition they will bear any block size as long as it brings in profit. Shards are created to accommodate reduced storage and bandwidth capacity of users.

These shards are detached from each other, basically being independent currencies. But it's not something unheard of, throughout history people have been operating in parallel standards - gold, silver, copper. In the USA there were multiple coins before establishment of the Federal Reserve. Even now people in borderline zones carry two or three sorts of banknotes in their wallets. So if a technically sound and scalable solution could long-term stop corruption and legalized theft then I would say these conversions between independent currencies/shards would look like minor inconvenience.

That doesn't change anything except make "full nodes" mean less than what they are in a non-sharded network.

Plus the complexity for what benefit? Do we stop trusting the consensus, and start trusting each node?

This is the best rabbit whole, where actually comes the trust from...

I believe you misunderstood. mda was posting about the miners having all blocks in a sharded-network, but "full nodes" having only to verify "their part" of the sharded-network? Do we stop trusting the consensus and trust the other nodes that have the other part of the sharded-network? To what benefit?

[hv_]

Less storage and less bandwidth than now but control of emission is still maintained.

That didn't make any sense.

User verifies all transactions in his shard to ensure that no extra coins are injected by miners - control of emission.

You said that miners/stakers are required to have all the shards. That is NOT sharding, and it makes a full node lesser than what it is in a non-sharded network.

We don't care about miners' wishes and requirements, through competition they will bear any block size as long as it brings in profit. Shards are created to accommodate reduced storage and bandwidth capacity of users.

These shards are detached from each other, basically being independent currencies. But it's not something unheard of, throughout history people have been operating in parallel standards - gold, silver, copper. In the USA there were multiple coins before establishment of the Federal Reserve. Even now people in borderline zones carry two or three sorts of banknotes in their wallets. So if a technically sound and scalable solution could long-term stop corruption and legalized theft then I would say these conversions between independent currencies/shards would look like minor inconvenience.

That doesn't change anything except make "full nodes" mean less than what they are in a non-sharded network.

Plus the complexity for what benefit? Do we stop trusting the consensus, and start trusting each node?

This is the best rabbit whole, where actually comes the trust from...

I believe you misunderstood. mda was posting about the miners having all blocks in a sharded-network, but "full nodes" having only to verify "their part" of the sharded-network? Do we stop trusting the consensus and trust the other nodes that have the other part of the sharded-network? To what benefit?

Yerify doesn t mean anything - you can verify what your e-Banking client shows - and go moaning about

If you re out of sync and behind mining nodes you re even more in the sybil regime


only miners make blocks and if they don't verify they ll lose money


But still, where comes the real trust from - if there is at all ? From all the little anno sybils ?