Time to research: Cellframe
Cellframe is a service oriented blockchain network. It is built very close to the hardware, to provide efficiency of use on any machine — from supercomputer to smart fridge. Post quantum encryption is a default one to provide the highest level of security.
Cellframe is the zero-level protocol for building the services underpinning emergent Web3 business models, adding not only the performance and integration required, but also an integral foundation of post-quantum level security.
By design, Cellframe’s architecture is a structure with a dual-layer sharding. The first layer (heterogeneous layer) can launch customizable subchains and tokens. On the second layer (homogeneous layer), subchains are organized in Cells. Due to interoperability features, they plan to build an ecosystem of services where every app or dApp will have an opportunity to exchange information with another app in a p2p manner.
Cellframe was born as a response to the existing challenges, leveraging design goals they believe will squarely address the coming future. It offers:
- Low level architecture
- Zero level protocol
- The inability to predict all the tasks that will be solved using Cellframe
- Decentralized services will eventually replace the infrastructure on the web removing multiple points of failures
Performance and scalability of Cellframe meets not only demand from the public blockchain market, but also from enterprise can widely be used for enterprise solutions. Here are a couple of examples:
- Service-oriented architecture make easier to build 2nd level protocols with dedicated services. Built in payment system and private shards(networks) gives ability to focus on service development itself, when conditioned transactions make 90% of typical smart contract operations without them (less gas consumption, higher security, simpler development, lower development risks and time).
- They already have an enterprise blockchain-in-a-box solution ready. Besides, one of the most interesting solutions for all of the public and private blockchains is a securitization (insurance) from terminal attacks.
- Due to its architecture, Cellframe is the only system that can protect a blockchain from terminal attack (incl. quantum) without users migration and implementation of a third party code.
Infrastructure
Their protocol was originally conceived as an infrastructure, which means it was created for high loads and a high level of interactivity. They are creating a flexible and efficient system, each element of which could be used to solve different problems with different characteristics.
If the load on a specific Cell increases to such a limit that it interferes with efficient functioning, the owner of the Cell can create any number of Cells in support of the first one. Different Cells in the same system can perform different functions using smart contracts. As a result, the system of different Cell forms Cellframe Tissue, the second most important “organ” of the system.
The first is zeroChain. The architecture of the resulting system allows us to reach a gigantic level of scalability and virtually infinite bandwidth and create the maximum level of security. ZeroChain is single line plasmas that work over all the cells and hold inter-cell communications.
The motivation behind the proposed system is an intention to create a system which can be both used for independent, decentralized applications as well as enterprise solutions. Truly decentralized services and applications can exchange microtransactions without overloading the system.
Due to a built-in payment system it works cheaper without smart contracts, in other words, cheaper and more secure. Besides unprecedented vertical and horizontal performance, variability and developer friendly approach, this will be achieved by implementing instruments to reduce the cost of mistake — arbitrary acts.
From the start the system will be launched with a combination of Proof-of-Genesis (<1% or total blockchain consensuses) and Proof-of-Stake (up to 99%) consensus mechanisms.
The network itself consists of dependent peer cells. The network can launch a chain with their own attributes, own token, type of consensus without unbreakable bond with zeroChain, etc. This is why these Cells are called syngeneic — they are similar to stem cells (which easily can convert to any specific cell type in the human body).
This metaphoric comparison means that each shard can be launched with any possible attributes and connected to any shard. Administrative information about Cells, tokens and its initial ledger’s locations are stored in zeroChain, which has a PoG mechanism. This decision also has two consequences:
- pseudo centralization of the system is leveled down by the opportunity of creating pseudo-dependent Cells, which can’t be affected by arbitrary acts or deleted by root nodes because all of the inter-cell communications are direct, i.e., peer-to-peer
- In the future, they plan to implement the type of consensus that can actually be able to govern the decentralized system.
Using this mechanism, Cells become homogeneous and have a high level of inter-cell communications. Сellframe hierarchy also presumes a fractal-like model: each Cell has an initial Base Chain inside. This Base Chain is similar to the zero Chain of the whole protocol but for specific Cell.
TLDR: Cellframe is not a blockchain protocol, we can call it an infrastructure layer for building a blockchain ecosystem. All existing blockchain solutions can be transferred to Cellframe and get previously unattainable performance and security levels.
Cellframe SDK
In current solutions (like Ethereum, Tezos, NEO, etc.), smart contracts can’t interact with operating system resources. In contrast to other platforms, in developing Cellframe, they aimed to create a framework, which would allow building business logic around the usage of computer resources, such as computing power, Internet channel, and disk space.
Also, they kept in mind the decentralization of the ownership and protection of end-users. The classic smart contract has an address from which it was deployed to the network, while the Cellframe-based blockchain service is inside the system and does not have an owner address.
They think that cash flows generated by the service have to be in a reliable way distributed among the service providers without having to pass through the owner of the smart contract. They propose to define such kinds of decentralized applications with the term “t-Dapps” (true decentralized applications).
At the same time, the process of developing blockchain services have to be no different from creating web scripts or other system services. Such an approach will make development easier and cheaper as you don’t need to hire specialized blockchain programmers, who are much more expensive than developers from the “traditional” areas.
In Cellframe, they eliminated the bandwidth bottleneck — the intermediate hub, which is commonly used in some blockchain platforms (for example, Polkadot) for the exchange of information between chains. Cellframe shards can interact autonomously in p2p mode, which ultimately increases the performance of the entire system.
Cellframe Core
The Core code is based on entirely original C-code with its object-oriented programming. Everything else utilized is original: the HTTP protocol realization, key exchange, streaming multiplexing, low-level services like VPN, CDN or edge computing. They stick to this approach to exclude ready-made hacking tools and speed up network event handling.
Because of the low-level optimization and event-driven internal structure, they aim it to be able to handle the unreachable level of performance. They reduced the number of queries to system functions and their associated so-called context switches. This is how Cellframe avoids data processing ceilings which can appear by using large amounts of data at high speeds, and these switches can grow exponentially.
Sharding
Proposed sharding technology is breaking the whole blockchain into specific “shard chains”. These shard chains are composed in such a way, that all the same account information is present within one shard chain. The shard could be limited with size, for example, 1GB.
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Sharding will be tied to the topology, and the topology, in turn, is tied to the real network infrastructure. Accordingly, the hit in the desired particular shard is determined by default by its network proximity. If desired, you can define shards by yourself or request to make a new one by default. However, overcrowded shards may refuse new members to register. All requests for shards occur through messages inside the zero level blockchain.
All the shard events happen in two stages: Declaration and Announcement with at least X blocks between it. For Cellframe, it means minimum time 10,000 seconds (could be more if the network is not loaded).
The declaration could be sent by Master Node or by Root Node. So if somebody wants to beсоme a Master Node, he has to send the request to any Master Node mempool and then it will be presented to the root nodes.
Root nodes check if the Master Node Candidate has held enough coins, closed with the specific output — Hold Output. It can be unlocked only with Zero Chain consensus. If the Candidate is good, then after X blocks Master Node Announcement with its public key declaration (related to the cell ID) should appear.
Cell Declaration works the same way, but such requests can be sent only by the Master Node that is already presented in the list. It must point to the cause of sharding — overloaded shard for previously launched Cellframe shard or coins held. Plus some metadata as usual. After all of the checks, root nodes announce the new Cell ID, and after that, the new Master Node Declarations would be accepted.
Inside the cell, there are two parts — Cell’s Base Chain and Plasma DAG. Cells’ Base Chain is similar to zero chain: it stores verified balance states from other chains, where the next transactions could be placed only in Plasma.
Communication and Network Protocols
All communications are performed with the usage of the DAP SDK framework, an event-driven system, that gives an ability to process a lot of I/O operations in one thread. It starts by default the thread number equal to CPU count and assigns them exclusively to processing cores. The same technique is used by the popular web server Nginx that gives it a huge amount of same-time connections processed and served. They expect to have the same profit.
Key Exchange Connections
Cellframe starts every network activity from the public key exchange connection. First, a client connects to the server and receives the public key, signed with the particular key included to Cellframe whitelists. Client validates the key, and then sends a short message encrypted with a server’s public key. Then the server decrypts it with its private key, encrypts the answer with a client’s public key and sends the result back.
After entering the exchange, the client can easily initiate any Request-Response session or bring up the stream connection. The server produces the private symmetric SALSA2012 key for the stream connection to reduce the processor’s load. Moreover, once in 30 mins, the key is being changed.
$CELL
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