Constant-Time Updates Using Token Mechanics

Abstract

Smart contracts are code fragments that automatically execute on distributed ledgers or blockchains. Smart contracts are typically executed by all block producers on a proof-of-work blockchain. As a result, smart contracts have their computational resources limited in order to prevent denial of service attacks on the blockchain, which would decrease its responsiveness, i.e. block creation throughput. Subsequently, updating values for a large number of records becomes infeasible on the scale of existing centralized services. We present a solution to this problem, when all numerical values of records need to be updated, i.e. in/de-creased proportionally. Our solution uses a mechanism similar to cryptocurrency tokens to track record values and enables constant-time updates for these values.