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ParallelChain Security: Preventing Transaction Spam On ParallelChain Mainnet

14 March 2023

We have all experienced unbearably long waiting times for a pending transaction to go through. If you have tried sending assets on different blockchain networks, you would know that such transactions could range from seconds to days. The waiting times depend on a number of factors, but most critically, it relies on the network load and scalability.

Users on public blockchains may occasionally run into slow transaction confirmations that leaves the user staring at an endless loading animation and scratching their head in confusion. If this situation occurs, the blockchain network may have been subjected to a spam attack.

What Is Transaction Spam?

Transaction spam, or transactional flooding, occurs on a blockchain network when there is a sudden significant spike in the number of on-chain transactions being submitted within a short amount of time. Such high-volume requests could be legitimate transactions that are being submitted by users for validation and it is often attributed to peak periods of activity from Web3 users in a short period of time.

Conversely, it could also be a result of malicious actors trying to overwhelm the network. These could be full-blown transaction spam that crowds out legitimate transactions due to Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks creating fake transactions en masse.

How Does ParallelChain Secure The Mainnet Against Transaction Spam?

Such periods of heightened activities have been considered during the development phase of ParallelChain Mainnet, and there are two ways to resolve such concerns.

Managing High Legitimate Transactions

The upcoming public blockchain, ParallelChain Mainnet, is able to achieve high-speed transactions of up to 80,000 TPS which makes it one of the fastest decentralised networks in the blockchain space. This means the mainnet is unlikely to see a bottleneck when on-chain transaction volume spikes during peak periods as the network has a large bandwidth to manage and validate transactions.

While the network infrastructure is built for speed and security, it does not mean that ParallelChain Lab is resting on its laurels. We actively seek to implement fail-safes to prevent any issues from slowing down the blockchain, and one such solution involves expanding the block size to accommodate more transactions when needed.

In an elaborate balance between transaction fees and block size flexibility, the base transaction fee is also adjusted according to increased demand on ParallelChain Mainnet. Simply put, transaction fees will increase as requests start to pile up on ParallelChain Mainnet due to higher demand, but it is done in a controlled manner that provides users with a realistic expectation on the increased cost. At the same time, block sizes remain flexible to allow more transactions to be added during periods of high traffic. This lets the network adapt accordingly to peak and non-peak periods without delaying transaction finality.

As ParallelChain Mainnet gains widespread adoption and more protocols build on the public network in the near future, there is a possible need for higher transaction speeds to handle the growing on-chain demand. That is why we will be augmenting the public network with ParallelChain-native roll-ups during the fourth phase of the ParallelChain Mainnet roadmap, which is also known as the Reddy epoch. The upgrade will tap into ParallelChain’s unique dual-blockchain system to further scale the public blockchain and handle more transactions as the ecosystem grows larger.

Anticipating Malicious Actions On The Mainnet

While the intentions of malicious actors are not always transparent, blockchain teams have to be prepared to keep the network active and secure in the event of an attack. ParallelChain Lab has factored the necessary precautions in mind whilst designing the mainnet infrastructure.

Hostile transaction spamming on public blockchains is often due to Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks which aim to overwhelm the validation system and bring the network to a complete standstill. To prevent this from happening, ParallelChain Lab will be enacting a set of DDoS mitigation solutions known as Mainnet DDoS Resistance, which is scheduled to take place during the second phase of the ParallelChain Mainnet roadmap, or the An Wang epoch. The bundled solutions aim to strengthen the blockchain’s resilience against DDoS attacks and alleviate bottlenecks within the validation process in case of an actual attack.

In a worst-case scenario where bad actors overwhelm validator nodes on the blockchain and cause some of them to come to a complete halt, ParallelChain Mainnet will be able to continue functioning and validating transactions with the remaining nodes thanks to the implementation of Hotstuff-rs in the first phase of the ParallelChain Mainnet roadmap, which is known as the Knuth epoch.

The addition implements the Rust programming language for the Hotstuff Consensus Protocol, which is a leader-based Byzantine Fault-Tolerant (BFT) contract. This essentially means that ParallelChain Mainnet is able to continue operating in a functional manner as long as two-thirds of the nodes are able to reach consensus and validate incoming blocks. Fun fact – BFT is based on the logical dilemma of the Byzantine Generals’ Problem, which shows how a group of Byzantine generals may have communication problems when trying to agree on their next move in a medieval battle.

To create a secure, functional public blockchain that breaks the current limitations of decentralisation, ParallelChain Lab is sparing no expense in refining the infrastructure of the upcoming ParallelChain Mainnet. With multiple key solutions in place to prevent transaction spamming, users can transact on the mainnet with a peace of mind.

If you are looking to build your next Web3 project on a safe, trusted network like ParallelChain, reach out to us here to get started today!

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