SKALE IN A NUTSHELL: THE CRASH COURSE

Over the past decade, blockchain has changed the way we transact, save, do business and generally, interact with the internet.

From only harnessing the distributed ledger of digitally timestamping records of transactions and preventing double-spending with cryptography, the blockchain industry has grown to harness the power of using blockchain to store data programs, lines of codes, instructions, applications, and overall enterprise use cash of solutions and made them decentralized, accessible by everyone, secure, fast and reliable for providing solutions for private network user or public network users.

We have seen various types of blockchain that solve various problems created from scratch or forked off another blockchain, we've seen their developers provide new systems and ideas to the possibilities of the solutions and use cases that the blockchain technology presents.

One of such blockchains that have pushed the borders of the solutions that can be built in this technology is SKALE.

In this crash course, I’ll cover sufficient topics that can help guide you in understanding the SKALE blockchain and the problem it solves, and also give you a head start on the steps to take to building solutions on the SKALE blockchain, as well as point you to the resources you can consult to help you better work your ideas out and start building.

This is the order in which we’d learn and 5 lessons I think are essential for you to cover;

1. A brief introduction to blockchain technology.

2. Overview of the SKALE BLOCKCHAIN and its solutions

3. SKALE’s Random Rotation Incentive Scaling security feature.

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO BLOCKCHAIN

Blockchains are basically chains of blocks that contain information or data and make them immutable by digitally time stamping them allowing for each record even if similar to another to be identifiable and verifiable by the block it was recorded in. A blockchain network is a network of computers carrying these activities.

Now let's think of how a Blockchain works, here you have a global network of computers and devices usually called “Nodes” that are constantly communicating with each other, constantly sending, recording, processing receiving data, all working together to verify transactions and update their current database.

This data could go from records of transactions to lines of codes instructing a certain process to be carried out within the network. Imagine the blockchain network is like the internet and every device connected to it plays a role in constantly receiving, processing, and sending data. Those devices connected to the internet are called nodes in a blockchain network, they are contact points in a blockchain network where information is received, partially or fully processed and, then sent out elsewhere.

These nodes could have different functions or are programmed to carry out certain activities, where some nodes can verify transactions without adding them, while others can verify transactions and add them to the blockchain.

SKALE is an Ethereum compatible Network designed to run on a limitless number of independent nodes, which provides resources to the main network.

OVERVIEW OF THE SKALE BLOCKCHAIN AND IT’S SOLUTIONS

SKALE Network is an open-source Decentralised Blockchain Network, designed to help Ethereum applications scale to 100s of millions of users, it's built on the Ethereum Network and functions such that, a series of smart contract on the Ethereum Network run the SKALE Network helping it run thousands of small versions of Ethereum, through a method of randomization, rotation and incentivized proof of stake to pool security from a lot of nodes and the Ethereum main network.

THE PROBLEM SKALE NETWORK SOLVES

To understand the previous paragraph you have to understand the problem that exists with building enterprise solutions on a programmable blockchain and serves as a foundation for other blockchain projects to exist on.

Enterprise solutions often exist as a Decentralized Application (dApp), and with most applications built, their solution and userbase grow with time.

Imagine this

Would you rather share a 1000 sq/m hall with 100 people or rather have your own tailored to you 10sq/m room all to yourself, which you can expand as your need arises?

Certainly, my 10sq/m room, because I love my privacy thank you very much!

That is equivalent to having your own database, transaction per second, decentralized storage space tailored to your dApp needs within the main network while enjoying the security from the main chain.

This prevents problems like;

having your activities slowed down because another project on the mother chain has higher activity than yours requiring more computing power and slowing down your seemingly “small” activities because you share a distributed database.

SKALE gives your applications their own database instead of a shared backend database with Ethereum, thereby increasing their own version of Ethereum which ensures speed, and maintains a connection to the main Ethereum Blockchain which works out in assigning nodes to your dApp and ensuring their security by rotating them.

SKALE uses an Application Specific Blockchain Architecture, it is a Blockchain built into the Ethereum main net, both Ethereum 1 and Ethereum 2, think of the Ethereum smart contracts as administrators on the SKALE Network that determine what nodes need to run on an application.

Overall, in a nutshell, SKALE blockchain is an elastic side chain that speeds up smart contracts in a secure and reliable manner and by increasing TPS lower and eliminate Gas fees. But doesn’t that mean it is also a side chain?

UNDERSTANDING SKALE BLOCKCHAIN AS A SIDECHAIN ON ETHEREUM

We understand that traditional sidechains are generally not secure, so how is SKALE Network any different?

Elastic SIDECHAINs or dynamic chards pull a subset of the main chain nodes, rotate in them to perform in the SIDECHAIN to optimize networking while retaining security from the main chain group.

HOW SKALE MAINTAINS SECURITY AS AN ELASTIC SIDE CHAIN THROUGH (RRIS)

A side chain is a separate Blockchain that connects with a parent Blockchain that allows assets to be moveable between 2 separate chains. A sidechain enables assets to be transferred between multiple independent blockchains, traded, and then moved back to the primary Blockchain, they also give developers a chance to test new projects before moving them to the main Blockchain, they also exist independently from the main chain, and they allow cryptocurrencies across blockchains to interact with one another.

Sidechains aren't very secure, you might have a mini Ethereum which is more Scalable and faster tailored to a dApp’s need, but it loses the security that comes from the mother network even though it is connected.

So SKALE developed this solution to make the chain more secure.

To solve this, SKALE creates subsets of each validator or shards off the main Network, to run on each SKALE chain, to achieve this they introduced randomness and rotation and created an incentive structure through (BLS) Boneh–Lynn–Shacham cryptographic threshold signatures with (DKG) Distributed Key Generation to come up with randomness, so every single node in the network is coming up with a random number immediately compiled and added and use threshold signatures to sign off on them and use DKG to make it secure, so we swap and rotate the nodes.

Consistent random selection and node rotation makes it a strong defense mechanism that protects the Network. This security model is called Random Rotation Incentive Scaling to improve security. Instead of having many different roles for different nodes, each nodes performs one job set for the network, so each node core has a piece Dedicated to;

Node auditing
Node validator orchestration
Node administration

The Node cores work with the Ethereum mainnet with a set of smart contracts that work in conjunction with the node core to determine the;

Rotation
Deployment
Randomness

the stake is however leveraged on Ethereum mainnet.

SKALE leverages the security of the Ethereum mainnet for staking. SKALE chains are configurable application-specific Blockchains often called dynamic chards or horizontal scaling that exist on a layer above the Etehreum Blockchain, they each act like a private Ethereum compatible smart contract platform with faster Transactions Per Seconds and no gas fees.

It's basically running Ethereum on a small chain where developers can pay Eth on the Ethereum Main Net to do work to assign the resources to the developers, and when that is done, the Ethereum Smart Contracts call out to SKALE nodes to deploy nodes to the application, depending on the configuration for the application on the size of the chain the developer needs.

A subset of these nodes are grouped to create your SKALE chain which allows for;

Smart Contract execution.
Interchain messaging.
Decentralised cloud storage.
Security by Random Rotation Incentive Scaling.
Tailored to your requirement and size which gives you fewer transactions per second where you're the only application on that side chain and don't have to share TPS with other dApps on the Network. And as your solution grows you can move from small to medium to the large chain with gives over 2000tps.
You can run full state smart contracts and are EVM compliant acting as the call and store function for Cloud Storage too.
You can message from chain to chain back and forth the eth.8. You can run a dApp, frontend, etc on SKALE.
Run a side chain but with the Blockchain connecting back and forth to eth Mainnet etc.

SKALE finalizes transactions in sub-seconds block times because you're within the network every transaction is gasless, so your end-users don't pay costs for interacting with your chain.

At least 16 nodes is deployed to run on the SKALE chain and then pay tokens in SKALE to keep running those nodes and deploying the Smart Contracts, this is somewhat like a rent off the main blockchain and getting room service.

SKALE FOR DEVELOPERS

Developers who want to build or deploy on SKALE network don't need to modify their solidity codes much, SKALE chain integrates with Ethereum’s system which allows Ethereum acquainted developers to use their existing Ethereum tools like their existing API’s, configurations, codes, token standard, etc.

APPLICATIONS AND USE CASE FOR SCALE

Gaming Consumer applications
Small and Medium Business and Business to Business disruption solutions
SKALE creates the mechanism that supports the enterprise use of the Ethereum Blockchain as opposed to the one size fits all for traditional Blockchain, allowing you flexibility so you can pay for what you need in size, privacy and configurable cost.

CONCLUSION

Anyone would be able to run scale node as a validator on the SKALE Blockchain. It is a stand-alone Blockchain that uses the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) as a settlement layer.

TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT SKALE NETWORK ON ;

FOLLOW SKALE NETWORK