ON-CHAIN VERSUS OFF-CHAIN CONSENSUS

SAMUEL HECTOR
3 min readMay 30, 2020

Cartesi brings scalability to decentralization. In the real world, ideas could look good on paper but scalability is a big challenge. With the fact that Blockchain transactions occur on-chain and these pose a wide range of limitations for dApp developers’.

As the blockchain technology gains popularity across many channels, it faces many challenges. One of these challenges is high transaction fees and off-chain transactions seem like a more plausible solution to this challenge.

Off-chain transaction means the transfer of value outside the blockchain ecosystem. However, most transactions are on-chain (within the blockchain). Off-chain transactions have lots of benefits. For instance, bitcoin users pay up to 10% fees of the total value of their transaction. These high fees might cause more challenges for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies especially in the face of encouraging more adoption among people. The off-chain transaction can reduce these transaction fees significantly and encourage adoption across the globe.

On-chain transactions are slower because every transaction on the blockchain must be confirmed across the node before the transaction is complete. Off-chain transactions eliminate the need for these confirmations. Hence, increasing the number of transactions per time without delay. Off-chain transactions will enable the wider adoption of blockchain solutions.

Where Cartesi comes in

The current framework of the blockchain makes it hard for the cross-chain transaction. For instance, if you want to transfer Bitcoin to Ethereum, you would need to convert Bitcoin to Ethereum and this could be time-consuming. Off-chain consensus will eliminate this, hereby enabling the users to transact regardless of the blockchain system they are using. Cross-chain transfers will increase the technology’s reach and adoption. On-chain transactions result in delayed payments because of the confirmation time frame on the blockchain network. Off-chain consensus can facilitate instant payout.

Since every blockchain transaction has to be recorded on the blockchain, this could pose a challenge to execute the off-chain consensus. Hence the, need for a 3rd-party solution Cartesi offers. Cartesi will enable almost instantaneous transactions by removing the need for the confirmation time frame on the network. Also, Cartesi offers a conducive environment for complex computations to run off-chain while retaining the integrity of the blockchain network.

Cartesi uses a decentralized Linux infrastructure to offer off-chain benefits while sustaining the security of Blockchain. With Linux open-source software, dApp developers’ can build decentralized applications on the Blockchain with ease. Cartesi allows dApps to do the computation themselves without involving thousands of nodes on the Blockchain. Cartesi Nodes are deterministic, hence they can get the exact bit by bit results at the end of the computation. If someone is trying to cheat the system, any one of the participants can see that there is a wrong computation. The Blockchain at this point resolves who is cheating and who is honest. Also, Cartesi helps Oracles access huge amount of data off-chain and allow the parties to execute computation on large pools of data to achieve consensus.

Important Links:

Website: https://cartesi.io

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cartesiproject

Telegram Community: https://t.me/cartesiproject

Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/Pt2NrnS

GitHub: https://github.com/cartesi

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SAMUEL HECTOR

Web3 Fanatic | Growth Lead/Marketing | Community Manager | Content Marketer | Social Media Manager | Reddit Promotion | L2 Maximalist | #Ethereum