09-15, 10:00–10:25 (Europe/Berlin), Atelier - Side Stage
A discussion about EVM client software, why it can't deliver accurate transactional histories (hint: it's missing an index), and what it would be like if it could.
In this talk, we describe the Unchained Index: a system for creating a naturally-sharded, immutable index for any EVM-based blockchain including L2s.
Using only the node software as its data source, the Unchained Index visits every binary corner of the chain's history, searching for address appearances (which is way more complicated than one might think). The algorithm is well-documented and open source. This ensures that the process is permissionlessly reproducible. The result of this indexing is stored as a collection of chunks.
By building chunks ("a time-ordered log of an index of a time-ordered log"), fronting the chunks with Bloom filters, and maintaining a manifest of all chunks and Blooms, we create an off-chain index that lives naturally on content-address stores such as IPFS. We publish the hashes of all parts of the index to a smart contract.
End users (by querying the Bloom filters via the smart contract) may download only that portion of the index that they are interested in (i.e., their own histories). This ensures that the system works on small machines. Using "Pin by Default" the system realizes the massive benefit of enlisting end users in the distribution of the chunks. Heavy users acquire, pin, and distribute a larger portion of the index than light users making the system "naturally fair."
And--because we've purposefully enlisted end-users in carrying the burden of the data, the cost of operation is near zero. Everyone shares the burden and reaps the benefits.
We're trying to build a true public good, and we wish the system to be sustainable. The only way for that to happen, we believe, is for the cost of the system to be very low.
TrueBlocks is a two-time recipient of Ethereum Foundation grants, the recipient of a Moloch DAO grant, an IPFS grant, and more than 3,000 individual donations on the GitCoin grant platform. Our work is fully open-source and local first.
<tags>Ethereum</tags>
Thomas Rush is the founder of TrueBlocks.io, a blockchain-focused consultancy and software company delivering fast, usable data from the blockchain. Rush is a two-time recipient of Ethereum Foundation grants, a Moloch DAO grant recipient, an active community member, and also the founder of the Philadelphia Ethereum Meetup group. In a former life, Rush taught undergraduate writing at the Community College of Philadelphia. Rush holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from Rosemont College and a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania.
Dawid Szlachta is TrueBlocks’ lead developer. Before joining TrueBlocks, Szlachta spent eight years sharpening his skills on various large-scale web applications. However, he is now more interested in developing local-first and privacy friendly software powered by Ethereum and IPFS. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Philology from the University of Warsaw and lives with his wife in Kraków, Poland.