How ChromaWay’s RBN is Preparing for a Greener EU

ChromaWay is one of five contractors participating in Phase 2A of the European Blockchain Pre-Commercial Procurement. ChromaWay is currently developing and demonstrating the ability of Relational Blockchain Nebula (RBN) to drive future blockchain adoption within the European Union.

Environmental sustainability is one of the fundamental requirements of the EBSI mandate. The European Green Deal is a set of policy initiatives adopted by the European Commission in 2020 that carries the overarching aim of making Europe climate neutral by 2050. Blockchain technology faces many important challenges in terms of energy efficiency, carbon footprint, and raw material consumption (in the form of hardware).

The ‘blockchain trilemma’ is a concept coined by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin that discusses the three main issues facing blockchain developers: security, scalability, and decentralization. The rising awareness of environmental sustainability has added to this trilemma, creating a four faceted problem — blockchain solutions for the future need to be scalable, secure, sufficiently decentralized, and environmentally sustainable.

ChromaWay has designed RBN to anticipate the need for sustainability by building novel solutions into the protocol on several fronts:

Efficiency Through ‘Relational Blockchain’

RBN achieves significant efficiency gains by combining a relational database and blockchain together in a solution we call relational blockchain. This innovation means there is no need to maintain external databases, lowering the total resource cost of running our network. In addition, using a database structure also allows for a single blockchain transaction to create multiple ledger entries. For example, a single transaction could distribute payments to 1000 different addresses, where a traditional blockchain may require 1000 individual transactions.

PoA Consensus Mechanism

Our protocol moves away from energy intensive proof of work (PoW), replacing it with a custom designed proof of authority (PoA) solution. In proof of authority systems, a designated number of known entities are given the responsibility of validating transactions on the network. This eliminates the need for mining, reducing the energy requirements of nodes exponentially.

The use of PoA consensus comes with an important caveat: the user of the network needs to trust that the validator nodes are acting in an honest fashion. RBN addresses this issue in a variety of ways. Firstly, the protocol includes a governance based penalty system that rewards honest actors and penalizes nodes who fail to report or report incorrectly. RBN also has the capability to add ‘watcher’ nodes which could be run by regulators, private businesses, and the public. These nodes store full transaction records and provide oversight to the network by reporting anomalies to the governance system.

Node Requirements

On most blockchains of today, running a node requires top of the line hardware and/or several terabytes of storage. In addition, nodes must stay powered up and connected 24/7 in order to ensure that they stay in sync with the rest of the network. When they fall out of sync, node operators must manually repair and resync their hardware.

RBN processes and stores data more efficiently, meaning nodes can be run on entry level computer systems and cloud computing instances. Furthermore, our ‘fast sync’ feature allows dormant nodes to rejoin the network quickly and autonomously. This combination lowers the barrier to entry for network participants and gives superior flexibility about where and how node installations can be built. For example, nodes could be installed next to a solar farm, powering up while the sun is shining and going into a dormant state when it is not.

ChromaWay Builds Forward Looking Blockchain Technology

As the adoption of blockchain accelerates, it has become clear that the underlying technology will be integrated into various facets of our day to day life. It is incumbent upon the blockchain sector to develop solutions that are environmentally sustainable both now and in the future. ChromaWay’s RBN addresses this challenge through innovative consensus models, node design, and data and transaction processing methods. We are committed to building a greener future for the EU and world while providing a blockchain that is scalable and secure.

Visit https://www.rbneco.com/ or https://chromia.com/ for more information.