Somnia Sets New Standard in Blockchain Transaction Speed

Blockchain has always faced adoption problems because of slow consensus and poor throughput. Most famously, the original Bitcoin protocol took 7 hours to add one block to its blockchain and achieve finality. However, with the advent of many high-speed blockchain systems, Visa-style transaction speeds, or Transactions-Per-Second (TPS) of 25,000 transactions per second looked achievable. Solana was the leader for a very long time, achieving 60,000 TPS. But now Somnia blockchain is capable of achieving 400,000 TPS!

This could be a groundbreaking moment for blockchain-based systems worldwide. But how does Somnia achieve this? Parallel execution, right?

Wrong!

Somnia uses parallelism implicitly by decoupling its consensus mechanism and its validator mechanisms. Therefore, multiple data chains work in parallel but do not communicate with each other. Ordering is ensured by a deterministic master consensus chain that orders every transaction deterministically in the order that they arrive. This advance is a sea change for blockchain as we know it. And some additional optimizations have been added to the Somnia blockchain so that it can reach such insane performance levels. Let’s examine them below.

Multistream Consensus

As anyone who has tried to code a parallel program knows, synchronization is key to successful parallel programming. It is also very difficult to create completely error-free programs when running code in parallel. Data races, deadlock, hold-and-wait, starvation, and many other parallel programming issues cause a lot of complexity and errors that are sometimes seen only in production. For that reason, Rust was hailed as a huge step forward in concurrent (parallel) programming when it adopted a synchronization system that was free of parallelism errors. This was a huge step forward when compared to C++, or MPC++. Parallel blockchains have faced all these issues in the past.

Somnia solves all these problems neatly and elegantly with Multistream Consensus, which is composed of the following two components:

Data Chains

Each validator runs its own data chain, adding blocks to the system independently of other validators. Thus one validator has one blockchain that runs independently. A number of data chains run concurrently without communicating with each other. You might ask - if blockchains work independently without communication, how do we achieve ordering? The answer is given below:

Consensus Chain (Aggregate State Management)

A master consensus chain manages all the data chains ensuring a deterministic ordering of all transactions. This decouples data production from the consensus mechanism. Because of that, all the parallelism problems are eliminated. A simple solution to a very complex problem!

Multichain Consensus Outperforms Parallel Consensus—But Why?

Critically, multichain consensus is free of all parallel computing synchronization problems. This means that under high loads, multichain consensus performs perfectly whereas parallel consensus would run into a bottleneck. For example:

Correlated Transactions

When multiple transactions have to operate on the same data block, parallel consensus requires synchronization procedures to avoid deadlock and other issues. Multistream consensus prevents that by removing all parallelism but achieving high speeds, thanks to the global aggregate deterministic ordering system.

No Gas Wars or Congestion

Instead of spiking and causing extremely high transaction fees when operating under high loads, the Somnia blockchain system maintains low prices even for high latency loads. This ensures stability even in times of high traffic.

Superior Speed on Single Cores

The Somnia EVM bytecode compiles into native x86 machine code. This has the same effect as if all the code in the entire system was written in C++. This native code runs so fast that Somnia outperforms parallel consensus systems by entire orders of magnitude. This is a critical component in how Somnia can achieve such high speeds.

Cross-Platform

Somnia works wherever an EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) is available. This makes it truly cross-platform and capable of compiling into its own native machine code regardless of the platform. Somnia also has omnichain protocols, allowing it to be interoperable with most of the major blockchain systems of today.

High Efficiency

Somnia allows present transactions to reference transactions in the past. This eliminates redundancy and ensures a very high level of efficiency. Somnia also uses compression.

Power Law Optimization

In most blockchain systems, the majority of transactions come from a very small set of blocks. This is an example of the power law distribution. Somnia recognizes this distribution and optimizes its operations accordingly, offering even higher performance.

This mechanism is not dissimilar to caching, and achieves similar speed-ups in performance, especially under heavy loads.

Further Optimization Through Technical Innovation

Somnia uses several other technical innovations to achieve its incredible speeds. The principal ones among them are:

BLS Signature Aggregation

Somnia compresses its data by aggregating BLS signature blocks. This allows compression at a high level and enables even further optimization of resources. As a result of this optimization, many more transactions can be processed per unit of time. There also also other compression technologies that Somnia uses, leading to extremely high throughput.

ICEdb

ICEdb can process transactions within 15-100 nanoseconds, ensuring that latency is always low and high speeds are maintained. ICEdb offers predictable read/write speeds ranging from 15 to 100 nanoseconds, significantly outperforming traditional blockchain databases that often face latency issues due to unpredictable read times. This allows for more efficient gas pricing, as users are charged based on actual resource consumption rather than worst-case scenarios. The database utilizes an in-memory cache with read promotions, optimizing both read and write operations. This dual optimization ensures that data retrieval is fast and efficient, addressing common bottlenecks found in conventional blockchain databases.

Scalability and Cost Efficiency

The architecture is designed for scalability. As more validators and data chains are added, transaction throughput can increase proportionally.

Optimizations help keep transaction costs below one cent, making it economically viable for high-frequency transactions typical in gaming and metaverse environments. This removes the problem of high gas fees in heavily loaded systems sometimes prevalent among many current EVM solutions.

Advanced Compression Techniques

The architecture incorporates advanced compression techniques that offer 20 times faster throughput when compared to other blockchains. This maximizes performance and supports high-density transaction scenarios.

Future Outlook

Mass Consumer Applications

The design facilitates the deployment of large-scale applications in gaming and social media. It enables functionalities that were previously off-chain to be moved on-chain, resulting in huge performance boosts. This performance is critical for supporting large-scale applications in gaming and the metaverse, where quick interactions are essential. The combination of high throughput and low transaction costs makes it an attractive option for developers looking to create interactive experiences across multiple platforms.

Ecosystem Development Support

Somnia has initiated a $10 million ecosystem grant program. This is aimed at fostering developer engagement and supporting innovative projects within its framework. The company aims at creating a decentralized Virtual Society, in which multiple ecosystems can co-exist and creators and developers can flourish alike.

Omnichain Protocols

Somnia's ecosystem includes a set of omnichain protocols designed to connect experiences, making them seamless and interoperable. These protocols enable the free movement of users and assets and facilitate unrestricted commerce. It also accelerates the composability of experiences and objects across multiple blockchain networks. This interoperability is the key in today’s hugely fragmented blockchain ecosystem.

Metaverse Potential

The omnichain protocols developed by Somnia enable interoperability across various blockchain networks, not limited to its own L1. This means that assets, avatars, and commerce can seamlessly transfer between different platforms within the metaverse, enhancing user experience and creative possibilities. The use of Metaverse Markup Language (MML) and the MSquared Origin Engine further standardizes this interoperability, allowing for a cohesive experience across diverse virtual environments. This has the potential to broaden and expand the applications of the Metaverse.

Creator Economy

Somnia fosters a decentralized creator economy, allowing users to remix and reuse digital assets across different applications. This capability not only enhances creativity but also ensures that creators can earn royalties as their work is utilized in various contexts within the metaverse.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Somnia blockchain platform presents a compelling vision for the future of decentralized applications, particularly within the metaverse and gaming sectors. With claims of processing up to 400,000 transactions per second and achieving sub-second finality, Somnia aims to set new standards for scalability and efficiency. Its EVM compatibility and innovative features like ICEdb and multistream consensus are designed to enhance user experience and foster a thriving creator economy. However, while these ambitious claims suggest significant advancements over existing blockchains, the platform's actual performance and adoption will ultimately depend on real-world testing and user engagement. As with any emerging technology, potential users and developers should approach these promises with a critical eye, considering both the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in this rapidly evolving landscape.