Blockchain Is Broken; A growing movement aims to fix that

President and co-founder of StarkWare Industries.

Blockchain is an incredibly exciting technology with limitless possibilities. It is also broken. We need to fix it so it can live up to its potential and do the best in the world.

Let me explain. Blockchain promises to transform how we interact socially and economically. We’re already seeing it improve transparency and security in all sorts of areas from financial exchange and identity management to data storage and supply chain tracking. We have barely scratched the surface of what blockchain can do.

Still, there’s a big problem with blockchain: it doesn’t have the bandwidth to handle the volume of traffic going through it today, let alone in the future. The world’s largest blockchains are essentially giant traffic jams. This congestion makes blockchain expensive to use because transaction fees are calculated based on supply and demand. As transaction fees climb higher and higher, blockchain becomes less accessible to a wider audience, and great ideas that could be realized with the technology end up gathering dust instead.

But there is a growing movement to make blockchain more accessible, affordable and scalable for anyone to use – and I believe we are on the brink of a transformative moment.

Unlocking the potential of open source blockchain technology

Thirty years ago, when I was a graduate student in computer science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, I had no idea that the theoretical mathematics I was studying would be useful beyond academia. At the time, my mathematical research in cryptographic proofs did not have practical applications.

It wasn’t until I attended a blockchain conference a decade ago that I saw my esoteric research in a new light. Cryptographic proof allows you to demonstrate the validity of information at a fraction of the normal cost, and combined with blockchain technology, it has enormous potential to improve the integrity, security and efficiency of calculations.

It has been a joyous and humbling journey to apply the cryptographic protocols I helped invent – ​​STARKs – to real-life challenges and to see a global community of smart, creative people begin to make it their own. My co-founders and I created StarkWare as a traditional business, selling technology that improves blockchain efficiency by aggregating large numbers of transactions and writing them to the Ethereum blockchain in the space normally needed for one or two transactions. We’ve had great success with this approach, but now we’re making that technology available to anyone who wants to use it on Starknet, a network that’s permissionless, meaning anyone can use it for whatever they want. Soon all technology will be open source – which aligns with the values ​​we share with the wider blockchain community.

I believe in the true decentralization of blockchain technology, meaning that everyone must have access to and build upon it. Like the internet, blockchain should be owned by everyone and no one. Tomorrow’s apps will be powered by blockchain, and we will all benefit from more people participating in shaping and improving the technology.

I am amazed at the innovative ways people around the world are using open source technology to build blockchain applications. In February 2023, we are hosting a blockchain community conference in Tel Aviv, and in the weeks leading up to the event, I have been reflecting on two key opportunities I see as this community grows:

1. Scaling

As blockchain is congested and expensive to use, it is not a viable option for many creators. But if the cost of each transaction goes down dramatically, scalability becomes far more feasible. Researchers, developers and entrepreneurs who have been waiting to pursue or expand their ideas will no longer be constrained by these financial concerns.

2. Empower people

The beauty of new technology is that we don’t know what the future will bring. Little did we know how much the world would change when the first smartphone was launched, and we are now waiting to see exactly what open source blockchain technology will help us achieve.

But one thing is certain: it will not be used just to help the rich get richer. It has the power to give all people, regardless of location, socioeconomic status, or background, the tools they need to build the ideas they’ve dreamed of. I have been honored to play a role in this movement to fix blockchain and bring it to a wider audience. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

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