Blockchains grows in size over time. This is due to at least 2 distinct things:
1) You store the history of transactions.
2) You store the current ledger state - the current amount of tokens on every address in the network.
2/n
On the IOTA network we have already introduced local snapshots, which allow you “prune” the history of transactions.
This means that the nodes need to store less data, and new nodes take less time to catch up with the rest of the network.
3/n
However you cannot prune the current ledger state because it literally tells you where all the tokens are.
Now, the more addresses there are that contain a balance, the more storage is required to store the ledger state.
4/n
So if I took 1 million IOTA (1 Mi) stored on 1 address, and split them up to 1 million single IOTA on a million addresses, we would massively bloat the ledger state.
5/n
That is a good way to attack any blockchain, because this increase in storage is irreversible, as the ledger state cannot be easily pruned.
So you can permanently slow down the network very cheaply.
(Note: the network can also decide to “burn” these dust addresses).
6/n
The new dust protection mechanism is being introduced specifically to stop the bloating of the ledger state in IOTA.
This allows the network to run on lower-end hardware, and prevents centralisation by means of resource requirements.
7/n
In terms of sending microtransactions, you can currently send them with a deposit. But we are also currently exploring other options. Hopefully more to follow..
The new IOTA tokenisation framework introduces various new UTXO types, which add a great amount of functionality to IOTA. But they can also add large amounts of data to the ledger (eg for NFTs, native assets, aliases).
2/n
All this new data will bloat the ledger, just like dust. So we need a dust solution that can also deal with this type of bloat, and would also ideally work with IOTA 2.0.
A new dust solution is proposed. This has 2 rules.
3/n
Recognising the risk of ledger bloat, a dust protection mechanism is introduced.
Note: when we are thinking about dust we have to think about UTXOs rather than addresses. This is quite tricky to understand for most people, as we will see. It took me some time!
3/n
The tokenisation specifications released today have attracted a lot of interest. There is so much to delve into here, but first I wanted to talk about the ugly duckling that was also released today. The new #IOTA dust RFC: github.com/muXxer/protoco…
1/n
This RFC is quite complex to understand, because we have tried to tackle many things at the same time, using an elegant unified system. So I will try to explain this as simply as possible.
Let’s start with why this dust protection is needed. What exactly is “dust”?
2/n
“Dust” refers to very very small amounts of cryptocurrency. So small that you would usually ignore it. If you trade on an exchange, you will likely see very small amounts of tokens, which you previously traded, still remaining in your account.
3/n