The next generation of blockchain technology seems to be all about modularity — but what is a modular blockchain, and what benefits can it provide over traditional monolithic blockchains?
While traditional blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum have spearheaded major advancements in the blockchain space, they have failed to adequately scale. During periods of high demand, block space becomes an exceedingly scarce resource, driving up transaction fees and pricing out billions of users.
A new approach attempting to address these high fees is known as modularity. Modular blockchains break traditional blockchains down into unique components, allowing for flexible construction and expansion of a network.
Traditional, or monolithic blockchains, were the first discovered iteration of blockchain technology. Bitcoin, Monero, and Litecoin are all monolithic blockchains, with a single set of nodes and miners organizing data into a single canonical blockchain.
Monolithic blockchains have the advantage of simplicity. All miners are mining the same single chain, and all users bid for block space in the same chain. The simplicity of this architecture, however, is what limits the blockchain’s capacity to act at scale.
When the single chain reaches its upper bounds of throughput, users are forced to outbid each other for the limited available block space. Simply put, traditional Layer 1s cannot handle the number of transactions-per-second required to allow for day-to-day blockchain payments.
While monolithic blockchains enjoy the advantage of simplicity, modular blockchains focus on scale. Modular blockchains like Quai Network act as many independent blockchains working in tandem — providing more block space, and lowering fees.
While many modular blockchains have sacrificed decentralization in scaling, such a compromise is not inherent to modularity. Through Quai Network’s use of Proof-of-Work 2.0 (PoW2), the traditional Proof-of-Work method of sybil resistance is refactored to function in Quai’s modular, multi-chain environment without any sacrifice to decentralization or security.
Within modular environments like Quai Network, many blockchains in the network produce blocks asynchronously. Quai Network achieves this modular construction through merged mining, with every miner in the network securing three Quai blockchains simultaneously. Quai’s unique merge mined modular blockchain architecture enables low fees, high decentralization, and high security.
As mentioned prior, the primary advantage of monolithic architectures is their simplicity. The use of one blockchain leaves no room for confusion as to which chain assets are on, and which chain they can be used on or moved to.
Quai Network, however, exists as a multi-chain network with no upper bound on the number of intertwined blockchains. To combat this increased complexity, Quai uses protocol-level decentralized bridging, enabled by the same merged mining as before to ensure full-network interoperability. By using a sharded address space, the chain of each Quai address can be found from the prefix of the address itself.
Quai Network’s Sharded Address Space
Further reducing the complexity of a modular construction, all Quai chains are EVM-compatible. This allows any and all assets from any Quai chain to be natively bridged to any other Quai chain without any introduction of trust. This differentiates Quai from other modular networks that impose stricter bridging requirements on what assets can and can not traverse chains, and how they must do so.
With a strong focus on interoperability in a modular infrastructure, users will be able to experience Quai’s full potential and functionality even without knowing the nuances of the network’s multi-chain composition.
The transition from monolithic to modular blockchain structures will be greatly assisted by Quai’s strong focus on minimizing complexity and interoperability between all chains in the network. Through the use of a merge mined modular architecture, Quai enables the decentralization of monolithic blockchains to scale to the needs of the global financial system.
Quai Network is an open-source Proof-of-Work blockchain network utilizing the capabilities of merged mining to increase throughput and security. Users of Quai Network will enjoy fast transaction times without compromising decentralization and security. Miners will have competitive mining opportunities across the many blockchains within the network.
Capable of thousands of transactions per second, the Quai Network is a Proof-of-Work solution to scalability that is soon to be ready for Mainnet release.
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