A Scalable Verification Solution for Blockchains

Abstract

Bitcoin and Ethereum, whose miners arguably collectively comprise the most powerful computational resource in the history of mankind, offer no more power for processing and verifying transactions than a typical smart phone. The system described herein bypasses this bottleneck and brings scalable computation to Ethereum. Our new system consists of a financial incentive layer atop a dispute resolution layer where the latter takes form of a versatile "verification game." In addition to secure outsourced computation, immediate applications include decentralized mining pools whose operator is an Ethereum smart contract, a cryptocurrency with scalable transaction throughput, and a trustless means for transferring currency between disjoint cryptocurrency systems.