Unleashing the Potential of DApps From Application Chains to Elastic Block Space

BiJie.com Report:
Artela Whitepaper
On June 20th, the cutting-edge parallel EVM Layer1 project Artela released its whitepaper “Full-stack Parallelism,” aiming to unleash blockchain scalability comprehensively, empowering DApps with predictable performance.


Predictable performance refers to providing DApps with predictable TPS, crucial for certain business scenarios. DApps deployed on public chains typically compete for blockchain computing power and storage space. During network congestion, this competition leads to higher transaction execution costs and delays, significantly hindering DApp development. Imagine using a decentralized instant messaging app where blockchain congestion prevents messages from being sent or received, severely impacting user experience.
To address predictable performance, the most common approach involves using application-specific blockchains (Appchains), which dedicate blockchain space specifically to individual applications. Artela innovatively introduces the Elastic Block Space (EBS) solution, leveraging elastic computing concepts to dynamically adjust block resources at the protocol level based on DApp-specific needs, offering independent scaling block space for high-demand DApps.
This article will introduce both Appchains and Elastic Block Space, comparing their advantages and disadvantages.
Development Path of Appchains


Appchains are blockchains created specifically for running single DApps. Instead of building on existing blockchains, developers construct a new blockchain from scratch using a customized virtual machine to execute transactions between users and applications. Developers can customize different elements of the blockchain network stack—consensus, networking, and execution—to meet specific design requirements, addressing issues like high congestion, costs, and fixed characteristics on shared networks.
Appchains are not a new concept:
Bitcoin can be seen as an “application chain” for digital gold,
Arweave serves as an application chain for permanent storage,
Celestia provides data availability as an application chain.
Since 2016, Appchains have evolved beyond single blockchains to include multi-chain ecosystems, exemplified by Cosmos and Polkadot. Cosmos envisioned a multi-interconnected blockchain world, tackling blockchain interoperability issues through its Cosmos SDK for rapid chain development and its IBC protocol for seamless blockchain interaction. Polkadot aims to be a perfect blockchain scaling solution, featuring parallel chains known as parachains from the outset, promoting shared security where different parachains communicate via cross-consensus information.
By the end of 2020, Ethereum’s scaling research focused on solutions like sidechains, subnets, and Layer2 Rollups. Sidechains such as Polygon, subnets like Avalanche, enhance the experience and performance of the chain, improving overall service capability. Layer2 Rollups, like OP Stack and Polygon CDK, have been widely adopted to enhance Ethereum network throughput and scalability, ensuring broader interoperability and compatibility.


Currently, numerous applications are built across various platform-spanning appchains. For instance,
Axie launched its Ethereum sidechain Ronin in early 2021;
DeFi Kingdoms migrated from Harmony to the Avalanche subnet by late 2021;
Injective introduced its DeFi appchain built using Cosmos SDK in November 2021;
dYdX announced its V4 version using Cosmos SDK technology to build an independent appchain in mid-2022;
Uptick Network launched Uptick Chain in 2023, an ecosystem appchain for Web3 applications, boasting a rich commercial protocol layer in its infrastructure.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Appchains
Appchains wield complete sovereignty over their blockchain for hosting DApps, independent of underlying Layer1,
which is a double-edged sword.
Advantages include:
Sovereignty:
Appchains can resolve issues through their own governance schemes, maintaining the independence and autonomy of individual application projects, preventing various disruptions;
Performance:
They meet DApp needs for low latency and high throughput, enhancing operational efficiency significantly;
Customizability:
DApp developers can tailor chains to their needs, even creating ecosystems, offering flexible evolutionary pathways.
Disadvantages include:
Security concerns:
Appchains are responsible for their own security, balancing node numbers, maintaining consensus mechanisms, and mitigating staking risks, rendering the network relatively less secure;
Interoperability:
As independent chains, appchains lack interoperability with other chains (apps), facing cross-chain issues. Integrating cross-chain protocols increases cross-chain risks;
Cost issues:
Appchains require extensive infrastructure setup, involving substantial costs and engineering time. Additionally, running and maintaining nodes incur costs.
For startups, appchain disadvantages significantly impact the operation of DApps entering the market. Most development teams cannot effectively address security and cross-chain issues, often deterred by high human, time, and financial costs. However, predictable performance is crucial for specific DApps,
thus, the market urgently needs a Layer1 solution offering predictable performance.
Elastic Block Space


In Web2, elastic computing is a common cloud computing model allowing systems to dynamically scale or shrink computing processing, memory, and storage resources based on evolving demands, eliminating concerns about capacity planning and engineering designs during usage peaks.
Elastic Block Space adjusts block capacity for transaction numbers based on network congestion levels. By offering stable block space and TPS guarantees through elastic computing, blockchain networks meet the transaction demands of specific applications, achieving predictable performance.
MegaETH once proposed a similar concept of “elastic dynamic expansion,” believing it to be an inevitable path for widespread DApp adoption.
Forecasting technological advancements in the next 1-3 years:
Phase one:
Horizontal scaling at the validator node level;
Phase two:
Static scaling at the chain level;
Phase three:
Dynamic horizontal scaling at the chain level.
Artela has effectively implemented this concept, addressing the core issue of “how to coordinate validator node horizontal expansion to support elastic computing” in phase one. As the Artela network grows, it subscribes to elastic block space to handle protocol user and throughput growth. Elastic block space provides independent block space for high transaction throughput-demanding DApps, scaling alongside growth. Essentially, block space determines the amount of data each blockchain block can store, directly impacting transaction throughput. Subscribing to elastic block space becomes useful when DApps experience spikes in transaction demand, efficiently handling increased loads without affecting underlying blockchains.
Implementation of elastic computing divides into “real-time elasticity” and “non-real-time elasticity,” where “real-time elasticity” responds to capacity needs within minutes, and “non-real-time elasticity” responds within a defined time frame.
Artela adopts a “non-real-time elasticity” approach,
where when the network detects the need for expansion, it initiates an expansion proposal. One or more epochs later (non-real-time), network validator nodes complete expansion and submit proof for other validators to challenge.
Artela’s elastic block space solution draws heavily from distributed database concepts and extends blockchain sharding technology. From a “computational shard” perspective, it scales capacity for application traffic demands, avoiding “cross-shard transaction” issues, maintaining developer and user experiences similar to before. Meanwhile, employing the relatively easier-to-implement “non-real-time elasticity” meets the practical needs of many DApps, enhancing applicability.
It is worth mentioning that as a horizontal blockchain performance scaling solution, elastic block space’s prerequisite is “transaction parallelization,”
requiring increased transaction parallelism before horizontally expanding node machine resources to enhance transaction throughput.


Thus, for Layer1s like Ethereum, transaction serialization issues are the most direct performance bottleneck, limited by variable block gas limits (up to 30,000,000 gas). Therefore, they seek Layer2 scaling solutions.
For high-performance Layer1s like Solana, although they support parallel transaction execution and can scale horizontally, they cannot address DApp’s predictable performance needs during demand peaks. Solana implements a “local fee market” solution to prevent any single transaction demand from monopolizing scarce block space, limiting time-based cost increases, and mitigating negative impacts during demand spikes. For example, during NFT issuance periods, NFT issuers quickly deplete each account’s computational unit (CU) limit, requiring higher priority fees for transactions to be processed within the account’s limited space.
In essence, Artela’s elastic block space solution addresses transaction demand surges, further extending Solana’s concept of a “local fee market,” ensuring not only DApp’s predictable performance but also preventing network-wide cost spikes and congestion, achieving dual benefits.
Conclusion
Whether Appchains or elastic block space,
both fundamentally aim to address different DApps’ varying blockchain performance needs
or the problem of “predictable performance.” There is no good or bad between these two solutions, only suitability or unsuitability. These solutions remind the author of the “Fat Protocol Theory” proposed by Joel Monegro in 2016, focusing on how “cryptographic protocols should capture more value (than applications built on them) collectively.”


In practice, Appchains are essentially a lean protocol,
especially when Layer1 adopts modular architecture, allowing protocols to be fully customized by the application layer. While this enhances value accumulation for applications, it also brings high costs and limited security.
Elastic block space, in practice, is essentially a fat protocol,
extending the underlying Layer1 protocol layer’s expansion functionality, effectively lowering the entry barriers for participants with “predictable performance” needs, while enabling the protocol to capture application value, generating a positive feedback loop.