'Ethereum Native App Specific Blockchains' - Chadwick Strange

use is by chat book exchange from scale and uh chadwick will be talking about how ethereum native app specific blockchains are made and just the internals of how scale works so without further ado i'd like to welcome him on on stage and uh i'll let him kick us off with the presentation hey everyone good to be here um chadwick strange vp of product at scale let me get this going um yeah so i'm really thrilled to be here today to talk to you about building ethereum natives uh native app specific blockchains um again my name is chadwick strange bp product at scale labs um and just to set up the stage of everything i know a lot of projects and teams are being formed and everyone's watching in um as i talk and as i show slides feel free to go to our our github at github.com forward slash skill network and then during the talk or after you can hop onto our discord skill.chat that will throw you into our core team community discord without further ado let's get started so just as an intro um scale network our mission um is to empower ethereum dapps and app developers to scale smart contracts in a secure reliable cost-effective manner think of this as like the web3 cloud you can use all the uh ethereum tooling dev tooling that you normally use truffle web3 ethers rebix scale networks compatible with erc20 or c721 token standards all the ethereum wallets work uh out of the box um so just wanted to set that as a stage and i want to go into deeper about some unique properties of scale network um scale is east native multi-chain network and i want to break this down like what is eth native what is multi-chain to all of you this might be new terms this is something that uh you know the core team and the community has been iterating and developing over the many years that we've been developing the skill network um so let's let's put some context in here so skill network what is eth native eth native is my term is it's built with ethereum technology uh scale during its early inception we took uh some of ethereum technology like the aleph client which is the c plus client um and we tweaked it made some bells and whistles some changes to it and it's now known as scale d it's sort of our scale evm ethereum client that we use on all of our nodes so each native is using uh the the compositions the the compositions of ethereum technology um and then using part of that ecosystem native is also transacting with ethereum um you know this this separates it from other l1s that are in completely other different ecosystems each native is transacting coordinating interacting with ethereum ethereum mainnet native is also having security that's based on the ethereum network a security model where you're using leveraging proof of work you're using staking you're using all the security guarantees of the ethereum miner community at large the ethereum nodes the network itself to provide security or leverage that security for additional security uh and you're not re you're not putting that security in something else or some separate technology or some separate black box uh where you don't know quite what's going on there you're leveraging the security that everyone knows and loves about ethereum um indeed native is coordinating incentives coordinating economic behaviors to be sure that all actors of an ecosystem are acting within the best interest of the community at large and using ethereum technology the network anything you know those those technologies leveraging them to incentivize good behavior and to disincentivize malicious behavior so why does each native matter well we can look at the contrary to this what is non-native what is that i mean this would be other layer ones that have their whole sort of wild garden ecosystem um where they're not you know they have a whole different security mechanism a whole different technology and they might build some sort of bridge to ethereum but in that way they're not eth native they have a bridge that supports that but maduro their technology is a a a totally separate walled garden and there might be interoperability or standard issues a different l1 or a different ecosystem that's not eth native might have different token standards different cryptography standards and so that interoperability or those standardization issues might go into conflict with you know building with the ethereum community and there might be hold up and rinse seeking another layer one might be might have a different community or different dynamics they might take away uh transactions or scaling from from the ethereum at large and then put it in their network so in that way it's it's they have their own walled garden um where they're not driving back value to the ethereum network itself um and the the other layer one the non-native layer one might have different governance issues they might have different incentives to change things at will so ethereum community has you know been developing over a very long time so each native kind of is contrary to that there's a strong community uh sense there's a strong governance sense there's a strong um you know standardization process that that that supports that sort of native technology and that support um so i've covered each native i'm going to jump over to what a multi-chain network is and a multi-chain network is not a side chain i view as a side chain as a network that is existing as one chain uh skill network is many many chains um blockchain's on demand so the skill network is comprised of over as of today over 150 nodes each of those nodes are supporting uh all the scaling infrastructure they're supporting multiple chains uh that can be selected at random out of the network um so in that way a skill network can be hundreds of chains that are selected at random to support a particular dap and so as adapt developer or any community that's using a skill chain your skill chain which is one out of many that the skill network supports is it attributed to you into your dap into your community and you can set up the specifics and sort of dial that in to support your infrastructure so your skill chain you have a your own endpoint you have fast block times high tps full state smart contracts decentralized storage you can use a knee skill bridge called ima you can deploy your own bridge that is yours that that sort of component out of the network out of the mini multi-chain multi-chains that skill network supports and why does multi-chain network matter i kind of touched on this a little bit but we'll i'll go in down into a little bit more detail your chain can be adapt specific similar to web 2.0 um you need scaling infrastructure you go to different cloud providers select your instant size you'd select your elastic ips you select your your skilling infrastructure your your s3 buckets and whatnot you build that infrastructure that scaling infrastructure to the product that you're building and the users who are using your product similar to web3 scale network provides dap specific chains that can be tailored to your or your community's specific decentralized application and to the users who use that and i'll go into more detail multi-block or multi-chain networks also matter because of the pooled security model where all the nodes collectively have stake and you're building on that collective pooled security of stake and selecting a a chain that can be allocated to your dap out of the many chains that are supported by this pooled security of stake so into dialing a little bit further what is dap specific what is adapt specific chain so again skill network out of 150 nodes of the network there that supports hundreds of different skill chains independent skill chains operating and running these can be dialed in and customized for a particular dab for example at the very top we have one sort of proxy as a skill chain this sort of oblong circle it could be a different size skill chain we have three sizes small medium and large they have each size attributes to the amount of cpu memory and storage resources that are provided similar to uh t you know a t2 medium xl large sort of aws instance or other cloud cloud instance so a medium chain has medium cpu memory storage resources uh that chain can be customized to be to use and leverage the scale eth bridge which is called the interchange messaging agent or ima and this skill chain might be set up that the project or whatever dap is running on that can continue to fund and operate and sort of change that medium chain separately if another project might request a large scale chain so this is the the highest amount of cpu memory and storage layer resources that a node can be provisioned for uh and this large skill chain might be customized to support multiple bridges so maybe not just the scale eth bridge that comes pre-deployed to each skill chain but you might connect in other bridges like connects or maybe a customized bridge to provide whatever specifics that your dap might need in order to talk to ethereum or other other networks and whatnot and then similar to a large chain if that dap needs specific multi multiple bridges maybe it wants to leverage some unique properties of file storage so file storage is another feature that comes with each skill chain it's a decentralized storage layer that that uses uh the storage layer resource out of the nodes and as adapt developer owning your large skill chain you can then upgrade or modify those pre-deployed file storage contracts to provide additional functionality or features that you might need specifically for your dap and then just a third example maybe there's another medium chain or even a small chain and maybe that project builds out a very custom bridge particular for their chain and that the entire chain the upgrade structure the continued funding of that chain over the months that it's an operation is community funded so there's no central party uh maybe it's a dow that continues to agree and like well should we should we again lease this medium chain with a custom bridge for the another 12 months out of the skill network um do we want to have the community to decide whether we should upgrade file storage and whatnot so in this way dap specific blockchains can be customized around different central or decentralized structures around the management or maintenance of that infrastructure layer and it can run multiple bridges or be customized according to size or different attributes to support your specific dap because no dap is is is the same a gaming dap will have different requirements than adapt that's deploying nfts to adapt that might be a decentralized exchange there's different security models there's different storage requirements there's different throughputs so dap specific allows you to dial that in and have the resources the web3 scalable resources that you need to power your dap in your community um the pooled security through eth native this is the second component scale network again is over as of today over 115 nodes when adapt developer requests a skill chain a subset of those nodes are randomly selected uh using uh using all the logic that exists in scale manager contracts on ethereum so we're pooled we're leveraging the ethereum mainnet we have the skill network has all these smart contracts that define how to create a skill chain it defines how to select at random these nodes out of the network it defines how nodes can register with scale manager the requirement of stake to put up to register and interact with the scale network so the pooled security will will select those nodes at random those 16 nodes then basically form one of the many multi chains that the skill network supports and from that pulled security you get a random node selection you you get the pool out of all the collective stake out of that network uh that stake is supporting your skill chain uh to run your dap those nodes can be rotated uh consistently uh to avoid collusion over time and you get access to consensus and full state smart contracts um so wrapping it back around we've talked about ef native we've talked about multi-chain networks so how is the scale network uh eth native well we have a couple of things i've touched on before the entirety of the skill network is operated and managed and orchestrated by probably the largest smart contracts ever engineered that define not d5 but defined scalable infrastructure that exists on the ethereum mainnet today skill manager has different logic layers for example scale manager defines how validators register with the skill network by interaction and transacting with those contracts and ethereum mainnet node creation um so validators can register any number of nodes and then basically stake for each node to be registered on the skill network so all that logic is also defined in scale manager through transactions on ethereum mainnet all the delegation that's used to pool uh to delegate into validators to to supply the amount of stake required to operate a node on the network is done through scale manager and is secured and staked through scale manager contracts on ethereum bounties that are paid out to the validators for their for providing resources to the skill network that's also done on skill manager distributed key generation we use threshold the skill network uses threshold cryptography um to assert data availability and provide the security model for all the independent nodes of the network that's all orchestrated and coordinated through the distributed key generation and skill verification contracts on mainnet and then skill chain creation rotation and slashing those are also uh defined in skill manager contracts and so in that way you're the network is leveraging and is is fully native in terms of the logic management and orchestration of the network itself and then to provide the economic coordination mechanism we have the this network has the scale token um on ethereum and this is a erc seven standard with a couple uh modifications to provide delegation and staking functionality um and that exists as a part of skill manager and if you go to our github we have skill manager contracts and the skill token code all available there for anyone to inspect and the third component is scale node so as validators registered node they provide bare metal compute resources um and part of that is a containerized system and the basic uh the parent structure is a uh is a containerized system called skill admin which is a python script that contains all the logic that's used to register a node um used to allocate resources out of the node cpu memory and storage resources for each dap specific skill chain that's requested and what the scale admin does this python script is it it's calling and transacting all the time with the scale manager contracts on ethereum mainnet so when a node registers scale admin runs a python script to then tell scale manager hey i'm registering my you know this node i have this amount of stake and it's doing all those transactions it's driving all those transactions back to the ethereum main net and when a dot developer requests a skill chain skill admin is notified if that particular node is selected to participate in a skill chain and then skill admin responds by allocating cpu memory and storage resources to to provide that dap specific chain all those resources and all those configurations needed to scale that dab so skill network is ethnic from scale manager the the entire logic the orchestration logic that exists on ethereum mainnet the scale token itself which provides the coordinating mechanism between dapp developers validators and nodes and the scale node which is a containerized resource a bare metal or or some some machine that contains a python script that's always actively communicating calling and transacting with the scale manager contracts on ethereum um so how does each native support the scale network so we have this notion that the skill network is is is many nodes uh many chains multi-chains and each chain can be can be specified to run a particular gap and again there's other layer ones where all of that the entire node registration architecture of validators is a completely separate system when you register a validator and register nodes or you do stake none of those transactions actually exist on ethereum they're a totally separate network scale is different we're scale manager all those transactions the validator registration node registration those are all transactions on ethereum all through the skill manager system so the entire network is orchestrated and managed through logic scale manager on ethereum so we have node orchestration node rotation erc triple seven token is on ethereum all the staking bounty chain fees inflation and slashing all exist on ethereum and this is really important because it's a decentralized shared value capture scale is mission is is to to make sure ethereum is successful in scaling and supporting all the amazing dapps and community that are building on top of ethereum and being eth native means that it means not to be competitive or to take transactions away from ethereum but it's to make ethereum successful and driving transactions back to ethereum while allowing ethereum to scale so as skill network grows and as the number of nodes and validators continue to grow over time as people request skill chains these are all transactions that are driving back to the ethereum main net back to the ethereum miners back to ethereum nodes all of the skill network scaling as that grows is relying more and more on very key secure transactions on ethereum so again we're driving transactions and value back to ethereum as skill launches because skill manager and all the orchestration is done by leveraging all the great technology ethereum has to offer and i can give you a result summary skill network has been around for a while we have we've got some data points we'd like to share with you about this synergy and these results last october we launched what's called the kilimanjaro main net we've always been sticking to this sort of mountain theme we began with fuji we moved to kilimanjaro so kilimanjaro was last october since october the network has been operating without pause without any crashes for over 190 days as of today we have over 45 validators some of which are shown here on the right collectively we have over 150 nodes and are continuing to grow which supports over 400 dap specific chains again as a multi-chain network we support many different sizes of chains small medium and large and all those chains can be customized to be dap specific to help the dap in the community scale as best as possible and we have the network has over 2 billion staked again this is staked through scale manager contracts on ethereum so that stake is secured by the ethereum network using logic from scale manager on ethereum and this week we're announcing the next network phase called denali and this kicked off a few days ago it's a multi-day upgrade process where we've been upgrading uh scale manager system to the newest features to support live skill chains on mainnet we've been iterating this over many test nets and had great participation and guidance from our validators to help refine skill chains and so our skill manager contracts have been updated in the next few days we'll be updating all the nodes on mainnet all of our main nodes to support skill chains live on mainnet we're super excited about that so back to each global hackathon so as as hackers as developers you can request your uh your skill chains from the hackathon so many of you might be wondering well what can you do with scale it's awesome that your eth native and your multi-chain there's dap specific and pulled security model well what does that give me there's a couple buckets here scale can operate very fast very fast very fast finality having adapt specific chain and leveraging all those resources from a node and then having that orchestration and management from skill manager on mainnet skill chains have very fast finality and what we've seen in the past is some interesting ideas people of you know with fast finality you can really change you have a step change function and how you can provide user experience you can make web 3 apps feel more like web 2 apps with very fast finality instead of having to wait 10 minutes for a transaction confirmation or or trying to to mimic you know you know that instant gratification of a transaction going through we've seen some uh projects in the past build media paywalls using skill chains so as soon as you you you uh you submit your transaction you can get access to all the rest of the media so it feels just like a web web 2 app but using decentralization and security models of web3 uh and authentications and excuse the spelling error there uh having people get access to sites and not having to wait for many block confirmations to go through no gas fees so skill chains operate with no gas fees there is gas on skill chains it's used as a metering agent to prevent any rogue execution of evm but if you deploy your adap on a skill chain all the transactions on a skill chain are no no gas fees at all and we all know how expensive nfts are to mint on mainnet so uh let me just leave you with this like imagine what new business models you can create if nfts if minting nfts are cost costs nothing on a skill chain i think there's some really interesting new business models that you can leverage with nfts way beyond what we've seen on ethereum mainnet and using scale technology to provide greater depth of resources from nfts and and whatnot dows you know with all the big spikes and gas prices over the last couple months to make any vote on daos could easily cost a single actor maybe 50 50 us dollar equivalents or more obviously that tends to skew who is then incentivized to actually vote if you have thousands of dollars locked up in a dow you'd be more attributed to vote on a proposal than someone that might be a smaller token holder so imagine what you can do now with dowse and voting and governance if you have a skill chain that operates with zero gas gas fees and then complex evm we've seen a lot of interesting projects using machine learning and file storage to basically put more complex transactions than just like architecting token transfers but now that there's zero gas fees on scale imagine all the new business models you can do if you're not constrained as a solidity developer to think about how do you minimize gas reduction but now what are the new things that you can do with with not being restricted to to minimize gas in your solidity contracts and the third bucket is high throughput skill chains depending on the size can support uh you know hundreds of transactions per second and we've seen a lot of interest for people to do immersive gaming imagine hooking unity up to your skill chain and and adding all the movements or uh all you know greater you know all the transactions of the game design on a skill chain itself or even streaming having streaming data being written right to a skill chain itself so there's a lot of interesting business models that you can create with just these three buckets here and there's plenty more i mean think of scale network the ethereum native and multi-chain network as an infrastructure that you can build on top of uh and there's many more things just beyond these three buckets that i think you can iterate with so i hope this is inspiring for you all i think this is hopefully this is generating some interesting ideas uh so again to wrap up um we've covered how scale network is ethereum native native being leveraging all the great that ethereum mainnet and technology provides um in a dap specific or multi-chain network uh scale network is not a side chain it's a network of many many many chains and each of those chains can be customized to support a particular gap or an infrastructure community so thank you all i know you've been watching lots of these videos probably today so if you have any further questions feel free to join our discord or jump over to our github if you want to inspect the skill manager contracts or see the technology of how we're leveraging ethereum based technology uh and then again you can go right to our documentation skill dot network forward slash docs um and i think i'll stick around here if there's uh any questions from the community i'll just uh pause here as the as kartik will maybe gather some questions thank you so much that was a really helpful presentation understanding how everything is set up um just in the interest of time i just have a single question for you how should dap developers be thinking about liquidity fragmentation in this model um if if they're all app specific like what are the kind of implications or side effects or just the the considerations you have to keep in mind um for liquidity in the protocols sure i you know it all depends on the bridge that you wish to architect with um you know the scale ima bridge uh you know you can build sort of liquidity uh liquidity protocols on top of that but again you can leverage any other bridge that you want so you can customize how you're thinking about you know messaging from a skill chain back to the main net again a skill chain is is 16 different independent nodes that are operating all independently and each of those nodes are are looking for messages on mainnet and then each of those nodes are independently sending transactions back to mainnet to support that bridge model at least that's the scale native bridge but again you can use any bridge or any other sort of liquidity design to bridge from a skill chain to ethereum mainnet awesome well thank you so much again chadwick and we'll