Author: Ruben Somsen 2021-01-01 00:05:59
Published on: 2021-01-01T00:05:59+00:00
Ruben Somsen proposed a fully decentralized two-way peg sidechain design called softchains which requires a soft fork to activate new sidechains. The consensus mechanism used for validating disputed blocks is Proof-of-Work Fraud Proofs (PoW FP). All softchains are validated by everyone via PoW FP consensus. If a user directly uses a specific softchain, they need to run it as a full node in order to get fast consensus. Peg-ins occur by freezing coins on the mainchain and assigning them to a softchain. Peg-outs occur by creating a mainchain transaction that points to a peg-out transaction on a softchain and waiting for a sufficient number of mainchain confirmations. Softchain consensus still requires a form of validation from mainchain users and consensus bugs can have an adverse effect. However, it could provide more opt-in block space and it could potentially open the door to chains with entirely different consensus rules.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T16:54:58.174486+00:00