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The Need for Increased Ethereum Scalability: Challenges and Solutions

Introduction

Ethereum is a popular blockchain that has been used in a variety of projects. Due to the advancements made by Ethereum, many developers use this chain to create their protocols and products. This chain has now attracted the attention of many people and is known and used as a widely used environment. This position has put this collection on the path to significant changes.

Some believe that Ethereum’s price successes may lead to various problems; but the reality is that these problems should be seen as a good omen. A blockchain like Ethereum needs to move towards more power and not get bogged down in side issues. However, optimizing the network and solving current problems has become a top priority for the Ethereum development team.

In an article on the Cointelegraph, Chris Jones takes a different look at topics such as Ethereum’s popularity and the advantages and disadvantages of this network. He explains why Ethereum needs more scalability to solve its problems. To learn more about these issues and their solutions, read this article.

What you will read in this article:

  • Why is Ethereum known as a popular platform in the DeFi space?
  • Why does Ethereum need improvement?
  • What is the solution?

Why is Ethereum known as a popular platform in the DeFi space?

Almost all major cryptocurrency applications in the decentralized finance or DeFi space belong to Ethereum, and this platform is undoubtedly recognized as an important part of the blockchain and DeFi world. Although Bitcoin has maintained its progress, Vitalik Buterin’s invention continues to grow and expand. According to a report published by Consensys in July, the number of unique addresses on the Ethereum network has increased to over 161 million, representing a 10% increase from the end of the first quarter of 2021. Additionally, the total value locked in the Ethereum network’s Proof-of-Stake ecosystem reached $146 billion in August.

The presence of smart contracts on the Ethereum network has revolutionized the world of cryptocurrencies. These contracts make it possible for decentralized finance to be accessible to users. While Bitcoin is known as the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, its main focus is on becoming a decentralized digital asset and providing a currency and exchange tool. On the other hand, Ethereum, with its smart contracts, has been able to take the applications of blockchain technology to new levels. These contracts allow users to define the terms and conditions for the transfer of value-based assets as they wish. This capability has led to the creation of a variety of blockchain-based financial services and allows users to specify more precise terms for each contract.

Examples include a variety of services such as lending, decentralized insurance, decentralized exchanges, stablecoins, yield farming, staking, gaming (gambling), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Why does Ethereum need improvement?

Without clear rules for value transfer, which are currently only enforced by smart contracts, the ability to perform a variety of activities with cryptocurrencies is limited. For this reason, smart contracts allow us to combine payment and value transfer processes with elements such as gaming, insurance, or specific digital assets such as stablecoins or non-fungible tokens.

The Ethereum network not only faces problems such as slow transactions and high transaction fees, but also the limitations of its own ecosystem. People who have bought or transferred Ethereum have faced problems with its high fees.

This situation has ultimately led to the of new developer environments such as WebAssembly or Wasm to Ethereum. This is probably due to the inflexible nature and architecture of this network for creating related smart contracts.

 

 

What is the solution?

The solution is clear: use of more up-to-date technologies! Fortunately, in today’s world, emerging and amazing technologies have become so widespread that there is a solution for almost every challenge. One of these technologies is WebAssembly, which can solve some of the problems of the Ethereum network.

WebAssembly uses JavaScript faster and is backed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This technology is used in next-generation blockchains such as Polkadot, Cosmos, Solana, and Oasis as a virtual machine for interacting with decentralized applications (DApps). However, many WebAssembly virtual machines are not compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) applications, which prevents new applications from running.

Some projects have been able to provide the ability to run non-Ethereum applications on the Ethereum network and Ethereum virtual machine. Some of these projects emphasize that they bring non-Ethereum applications to the Ethereum network without sacrificing the efficiency and speed that WebAssembly offers. Backward compatibility has also been considered for developers in some of these projects. This means that smart contracts written in the Solidity language on the Ethereum network can also be implemented and executed on other networks without any changes.

Conclusion

Ethereum’s popularity in the DeFi space has grown dramatically due to the outstanding capabilities this network offers, including the use of smart contracts, and has attracted many users