Thread by @avaxholic

COMPARISON BETWEEN MODULAR BLOCKCHAINS

🧵 Scalability has long been a topic of intense debate in this field. Discussions about monolithic versus modular blockchains, horizontal versus vertical scaling, have long been the focus of community communication.

#AvaxholicInsights

In this post, we will compare and analyse popular modular blockchains through five key parameters:
- Consensus
- Finality
- Decentralization (Validators)
- Interoperability
- Speed/ Capacity

#AvaxholicInsights

I. OVERVIEW

- Avalanche: @avalancheavax is a #blockchain ecosystem validated by groups of nodes called subnets. Subnets are free to choose their own consensus mechanism. 🔺

- Polkadot: @Polkadot is a layer-0 protocol and multichain network laying the foundation for the future of #Web3. Substrate is the primary blockchain SDK used by developers to create the parachains that make up the Polkadot network.

- Cosmos: The @Cosmos SDK is a set of tools with out-of-the-box consensus and execution that allow anyone to create their own PoA/PoS #blockchain.

- Polygon: @0xPolygon is the latest announced out-of-the-box application-specific blockchain in a series of ecosystems called Supernet. Similar to the Cosmos SDK, Polygon has a modular framework called Edge that facilitates the creation of independent networks.

II. CONSENSUS

- Avalanche: #Avalanche consensus is built on the snowball algorithm, which utilizes repeated random subsampling to achieve consensus. Under this system, each node randomly asks k number of neighboring nodes to determine whether a transaction is correct.

This process is repeated until a certain preset quorum x is reached, and the nodes are within a high confidence range. 🧐

- Polkadot: Although parachains share global state, they are free to choose the specific consensus algorithm they run (GRANDPA/Tendermint/traditional pBFT, etc.) in order to achieve parachain-level verification before settlement on the relay chain (Polkadot/Kusama).

- Cosmos: In the @cosmos ecosystem, unlike Polkadot, each application-specific blockchain maintains its own independent state, achieving independent finality on each block.

- Polygon: There are two types of consensus include IBFT PoA (Istanbul BFT Proof of Authority) and PoS.

III. FINALITY

The process of reaching finality by @avalancheavax and @0xPolygon is less than 2s, which is significantly faster than #Cosmos at 6s and #Polkadot at 12-60s. 🥰

#AVAX

IV. DECENTRALIZATION (VALIDATORS)

#Avalanche's number of validators outperforms the competition and is not limited, which increases the network's degree of decentralization in the future. ☺️

V. INTEROPERABILITY

- Avalanche: The information transfer between subnets still needs to be perfected and currently relies on third-party repeaters, so as long as third-party bridges have their own security guarantees, the results will be relatively reasonable. 🧐

- Polkadot: All messages in #Polkadot’s cross-chain messaging system will be transmitted through the relay chain, thereby continuing its security.

- Cosmos: Through the a #Cosmos Hub, connected districts can communicate with each other. The specific architecture for information exchange is called Inter-Blockchain Communication.

The IBC client is a light client that keeps track of the consensus state of each chain and the necessary proofs to properly verify the proofs against the client’s consensus state.

- Polygon: The #Polygon Edge framework utilizes a bridging solution called ChainBridge to facilitate communication between supernets, including but not limited to token transfers.

- Polygon: The #Polygon Edge framework utilizes a bridging solution called ChainBridge to facilitate communication between supernets, including but not limited to token transfers

VI. SPEED/CAPACITY

- Avalanche: Unlimited buildable projects. Due to the flexibility of the consensus mechanism and validator set, some blockchains in the #Avalanche ecosystem can also have shorter block times based on the number of participants in each subnet. 🥰

- Polkadot: There are estimated to be about 100 parachains, also means that the barriers to entry for new projects to join the ecosystem are relatively high.

The price of having a higher shared security guarantee is that after a certain number of para-chains, the time to finality is significantly slowed down.

- Cosmos: Unlimited buildable projects. Finality is not centralized on a single chain.

- Polygon: Unlimited number of supernets to be built.

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