During this year’s annual Scaling Bitcoin Conference, which was hosted by Stanford University in California, developers premiered a new blockchain technology, Graphene. Quicker and more efficient than current technology, Graphene promises to reduce bandwidth by propagating block to full nodes via bloom filters as well as invertible-bloom-lookup-tables (IBLTs).
The technology was introduced by one of its leading developers, Brian Levine from UMass Amherst, during the conference. Graphene is the result of the collaborative work between Levine, Pinar Ozisik, George Bissias, and Amir Houmansadr at UMass. According to the developers, Graphene is the most efficient blockchain technology, even when compared to methods such as Compact Blocks and Xtreme Thinblocks. The technology is currently undergoing extensive testing via a Python testnet.
Graphene's white paper states that Graphene blocks are significantly smaller, as compared to other technologies. When using Compact Blocks, a 17.5 KB Xtreme Thinblock can be encoded in 10 KB. Graphene can reduce the size even further from the original 17.5KB to 2.6 KB.
The white paper added that Graphene uses approximately 10% of the space required by Compact Blocks. By using the combination of bloom filters as well as IBLTs, Graphene provides the most efficient solution to the issue of set reconciliation on Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer network.
Bloom filters have already become utilized in blockchain networks in an attempt to lessen bandwidth consumption. Currently, Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) wallets use this solution. According to Levine, since IBLTs are significantly more difficult, they haven’t been utilized as widely as Bloom Filters. Once IBLTs and Bloom Filters are combined, as it is in Graphene, there is no need to communicate lists of ID transactions and only one-tenth of current block propagation methods would be used.
This means that Graphene blocks could carry over 4,000 transactions within a single 1 MB block, whereas Compact Blocks would require at least 20 KB. However, there is a downside to Graphene. Levine stated that the overall size increases as the mempool increases. Despite this, Levine stated that he currently has a mempool with 100k transactions and the size has not been affected yet.
In addition, Graphene fits neatly within a single IP packet, unlike Compact Blocks. Despite the significantly improved storage solutions, the technology does not require more time or CPUs to store transactions.
The crypto community expressed enthusiasm over the latest technology over several forums and threads including Reddit. Several Bitcoin Cash users also expressed the hope that Graphene will be implemented into their network.
Some critics, including the Blockstream co-founder, Gregory Maxwell, stated via Reddit that Graphene seems to disregard certain system requirements. Maxwell also noted that most users seem to misunderstand or over-exaggerate the technology’s capabilities.
Despite Maxwell's critiques, most cryptocurrency enthusiasts have shown growing interest in the latest technology. Graphene is currently being tested and refined in the College of Information and Computer Sciences at UMass.
The technology was introduced by one of its leading developers, Brian Levine from UMass Amherst, during the conference. Graphene is the result of the collaborative work between Levine, Pinar Ozisik, George Bissias, and Amir Houmansadr at UMass. According to the developers, Graphene is the most efficient blockchain technology, even when compared to methods such as Compact Blocks and Xtreme Thinblocks. The technology is currently undergoing extensive testing via a Python testnet.
Graphene's white paper states that Graphene blocks are significantly smaller, as compared to other technologies. When using Compact Blocks, a 17.5 KB Xtreme Thinblock can be encoded in 10 KB. Graphene can reduce the size even further from the original 17.5KB to 2.6 KB.
The white paper added that Graphene uses approximately 10% of the space required by Compact Blocks. By using the combination of bloom filters as well as IBLTs, Graphene provides the most efficient solution to the issue of set reconciliation on Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer network.
Bloom filters have already become utilized in blockchain networks in an attempt to lessen bandwidth consumption. Currently, Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) wallets use this solution. According to Levine, since IBLTs are significantly more difficult, they haven’t been utilized as widely as Bloom Filters. Once IBLTs and Bloom Filters are combined, as it is in Graphene, there is no need to communicate lists of ID transactions and only one-tenth of current block propagation methods would be used.
This means that Graphene blocks could carry over 4,000 transactions within a single 1 MB block, whereas Compact Blocks would require at least 20 KB. However, there is a downside to Graphene. Levine stated that the overall size increases as the mempool increases. Despite this, Levine stated that he currently has a mempool with 100k transactions and the size has not been affected yet.
In addition, Graphene fits neatly within a single IP packet, unlike Compact Blocks. Despite the significantly improved storage solutions, the technology does not require more time or CPUs to store transactions.
The crypto community expressed enthusiasm over the latest technology over several forums and threads including Reddit. Several Bitcoin Cash users also expressed the hope that Graphene will be implemented into their network.
Some critics, including the Blockstream co-founder, Gregory Maxwell, stated via Reddit that Graphene seems to disregard certain system requirements. Maxwell also noted that most users seem to misunderstand or over-exaggerate the technology’s capabilities.
Despite Maxwell's critiques, most cryptocurrency enthusiasts have shown growing interest in the latest technology. Graphene is currently being tested and refined in the College of Information and Computer Sciences at UMass.