Turning Catapult public chain into the most scalable, robust and valueble blockchain in the world

Technical Discussion
#1

In an interview from March of this year main developer Jaguar0625 had this to say regarding the scalability and strength of the public Catapult chain;

“The Catapult public chain will support higher TPS than the NEM public chain (~2 TPS) but it will not natively support the 4000 TPS number that is thrown around so often. That would require much stronger nodes on average than are currently running the NEM public chain, and we don’t want to do anything that disincentivizes running nodes. The network is already relatively small, and we’d prefer to see it grow rather than shrink.”

I am not a tech-guy so please correct me if I am wrong but I thought about a holistic solution that could perhaps turn public Catapult chain into the most scalable, robust and valueble blockchain in the entire world. It’d be nice to get some feedback regarding this vision, whether it’s attainable and/or realistic, or whether I am just daydreaming about a utopian future/new economy movement.

So my solution is basically this; create a hybridized node structure, mixing current node model with lower node requirements and implementing government run nodes (the strong robust nodes).

Currently it’s very expensive to run a supernode, seeing how xem value is expected to rise perhaps it’s better to lower the requirement to run a supernode, for example requiring 300k XEM rather than 3m XEM. This model could be supported indefinitely if part of all the fees on the network get collected into a so-called supernode fund. This is one way to grow a stronger network and get more nodes running.

The other part of the equation is to basically incorporate governments to run special NEM nodes. Governments basically have infinite resources and technical capabilities from a technology point of view. In order to incentivize governments to run special nodes a clearinghouse settlement layer ought to be created on the public Catapult chain run by participating governments. They get the benefit of instant (near) free cross-border transactions by using XEM for clearinghouse settlements and we get the benefit of having the most scalable, robust and valueble blockchain in the world. In order to achieve that NEM Foundation ought to set up a sub-foundation, for example “NEM Fintech Inc.” where government officials can be represented and determine the policy that best suits their needs. We could even allow governments to not only reap the direct benefits of free cross-border transactions but also let them come up with models themselves to generate revenue by cutting out the banks and clearinghouses, opening up a multi-trillion dollar market for them.

Any feedback, especially from devs themselves, would be highly appreciated :).

#2

Incorporating governments to use nem is science fiction, therefore nothing more to add on that.

2 TPS is somewhat of a joke compared to VisaNet which process tens of thousands TPS,
(for comparison etherium ~15 TPS which is also bad).

Focusing on new technology, in the other words novel math formalism, is by my opinion way to go.
Coding and re-writing the same old algorithms is (again by my opinion) recipe for failure.

#3

You can run your own nodes and get 4000txps. What is the benefit for buying orders of magnitude more expensive nodes only to give them for free to the public where their efficacy will be completely diluted. Check out the fees associated with running a private nem chain here.

People run nodes because they are speculating on XEM token price I assume. The payout is not that high. As the technology moves from speculation to real use, I would expect the number and size of supernodes to drop significantly. ie. Bigger or more nodes would require higher payouts. This aside, when talking about nodes, the expense that is limiting the capacity is one of hardware, not cost to purchase. Just look to the expense of running an ethereum or bitcoin node for reference. As I understand the quote from Jaguar seems to point to the 2txps being the result of nodes being simple enough for anyone to run. Try and run an bitcoin node, you can’t. But you can run a XEM node.

Speed will follow use I believe, not precede it and will likely be a limiting factor for many years. The internet is even still limiting for some uses.
Until that time, developers will need to stay creative :wink: Use what we have. As the speed grows, new applications will be possible.

Nice point, though I cannot answer your question. I would assume the answers as to why not hybrid nodes is a technical one.

Can you link the interview with @Jaguar0625?

#4

2 TPS is entirely artificial. It’s not the current ceiling by any means. There’s been no need to raise it.

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