Designing Fair and Efficient Blockchain Games: Background

TABLE OF LINKS

Abstract and Introduction

Background

Randomness Practice in Blockchain

System Development

Transaction Fee Comparison

Discussion

Conclusion and References

2 BACKGROUND

2.1 Blockchain and Smart Contract

Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology (DLT) that securely records transactions across a network, ensuring transparency, immutability, and data trust [25]. Smart contracts are code-based logic running on the blockchain, capable of executing specific actions when predefined conditions are met, thereby automating a multitude of processes. These contracts function within blockchain networks, and presently, numerous decentralized applications (DApps) have been developed across various blockchains utilizing smart contracts.

Every call to a blockchain function, such as writing data or executing smart contracts, requires costs known as transaction fees [6]. This practice is indispensable due to the decentralized nature of the blockchain, where computations and data storage occur across multiple nodes. Additionally, to ensure the consistency, transactions must be executed sequentially and packaged into blocks, which can limit the computational capacity of the platform. Transaction fees serve as a means to prevent resource misuse and maintain cost equilibrium.

However, high transaction fees represent a significant obstacle to the widespread adoption of blockchain applications, as users may be disincentivized from using DApps when transaction fees surpass their potential earnings. Consequently, DApps about earning, such as Finance, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT), and Gaming Finance, currently dominate the landscape, whereas those emphasizing playability attract fewer users [12].

Thankfully, several modern groundbreaking DLT designs, such as the Sui Network, have emerged to reduce the computational and storage burdens on the network while enhancing computational efficiency, thus alleviating transaction fee issues.

2.2 Sui Network

Mainnet launched in May 2023. Sui is a decentralized, permissionless smart contract platform prioritizes low-latency asset management [23]. Originating from Meta’s Diem (formally known as Libra), Sui utilizes the Move programming language [1] to define and manage assets owned by addresses, with custom rules for asset creation, transfer, and mutation. Unlike Ethereum’s account-based design, in which assets exist as numerical variables within the address or smart contracts, Sui’s asset management is object-based, similar to the Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) structure found in Bitcoin [16], allowing objects of digital assets to be fragmented, combined, and transferred to different addresses.

Moreover, what sets Sui apart from traditional blockchain networks is its utilization of a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) model to record transactions. As shown in Figure 1, each transaction block on Sui includes several transactions with inputs of different objects on Sui Network. Then, these transactions will mutate or create new objects. Using DAG and object-based design, Sui can enable transactions with unrelated objects to be executed without a specific sequence, maximizing Sui’s computational efficiency and scalability. As a result, despite Sui experiencing a rapid increase in transaction volume from thousands to tens of millions in a short period, the transaction fees have remained nearly consistent [7].

In addition, Sui has made optimizations in data storage. Sui allows the deletion of data on the network to free up space and obtain a Storage Rebate Fee [23]. For example, in Figure 1, the first transaction requires writing 100 Kilobytes (KB) of participants into an array in the RaffleObject. It incurs a computation fee of 0.001 Sui and a storage cost of 0.779 Sui. However, when a subsequent transaction clears the array of participants and thus frees 100 KB of data at that RaffleObject, the transaction sender will receive a storage rebate of 0.77 Sui. This ultimately reduces the overall longterm cost of storing a substantial amount of data on Sui, leaving only the computational and necessary storage fees, as extra storage costs can be rebated by clearing data storage after operations are completed.

Notably, even though on-network data is cleared, verification and reproduction remain possible since inputs are stored within the Transaction Block and retained in a database on the Sui Nodes without consuming network hot-memory resources.