In a recent blog postEthereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has brought the blockchain community’s attention back to Plasma, a scaling solution first introduced in 2017. This resurgence is attributed to technological improvements, particularly in the realm of ZK-SNARK, a form of cryptography that improves security and efficiency.
The return of Plasma?
Plasma, initially sidelined in favor of cumulative technology, faced challenges in client-side data storage and adaptability. Buterin’s new proposal suggests that these limitations could be overcome, making Plasma once again a viable solution.
Buterin describes how validity testing, specifically ZK-SNARK, could simplify the Plasma framework. These tests guarantee the authenticity of each block on the Plasma chain, reducing the state users need to download and allowing for potentially instant withdrawals in certain cases.
Additionally, Buterin proposes extending this technology to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), using a parallel UTXO graph for ETH and ERC20 tokens, simplifying the complexities associated with account-based systems.
This approach could improve user experience and security on the Ethereum blockchain.
Copycat accusations
The Cardano community, however, has raised concerns about the new Ethereum address.
Members accuse Ethereum of replicating ideas from Cardano’s Hydra, a layer 2 scalability solution.
Hydra aims to increase transaction speed and scalability on the Cardano network using state channels, a similar concept to Plasma.
Posts from prominent members of the community, including Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson himself, have accused Ethereum lending ideas started by Cardano.
