ORION and ARROW are a new generation of general blockchain development platform. In order to achieve it, ORION adopts a programming framework based on the Substrate blockchain. In fact, almost all current blockchain systems have evolved from the Bitcoin/Ethereum model. Generally speaking, a blockchain system should have: the basic parts of the blockchain system, such as the consensus system (blockchain distributed cornerstone), p2p connection and broadcasting system, storage system, etc., as well as the function of the chain. The basic part of the system is a component that will be available in the current blockchain model, among which consensus and P2P reflect the distributed nature of the blockchain. The function of the chain is the key part of the competition between blockchains. This part is very different from the basic part of the system, providing that the chain can provide specific functions in addition to the blockchain model. In general, the basic part of the system changes less, while the functional part of the chain changes more. In particular, many primary chains do not have complex advanced functions at the beginning, and the version is very low. In the subsequent gradual development, the development speed will be increased to achieve the effect of gradually upgrading other functions. As a blockchain framework, Substrate believes that all chains should have the basic part of the blockchain system, and developers can freely customize the functional parts of the chain.
Gavin Wood, as the developer behind the actual core of Ethereum, is naturally well aware of the framework of the system, so since Substrate Framework was proposed (September 2018), he has made two key distinctions about the blockchain system:
Substrate Core and Runtime
The Core part is the system foundation part mentioned above, and the Runtime part is the chain function, such as fund management transfer, equity calculation, etc.
When Orion uses the Substrate framework, due to such a clear division of basics and functions, it is not necessary to care about the basic function of the blockchain, which is the work of the Core part, but only care about the function that its chain can provide, which is the work of the Runtime part.
Orion uses Substrate to achieve a function that all previous blockchains could not achieve: the blockchain system upgrade. For a centralized Internet system, since the control of the code and data is in your hands, you can upgrade and modify the version at any time. However, only the background code of webpage H5 can be upgraded at any time. In the mobile Internet, APP still needs to be updated by users themselves. In order to simplify this problem, the Android ecosystem has launched a number of frameworks with different functions, so that users can carry out "hot update" without updating the APP, which has become famous previously. These hot update frameworks essentially allow you to download a piece of updated code from the background and then load and run the new code in a variety of ways. Generally, the functions provided by such hot update will bring a certain performance loss. Although part of the update problem is solved, the update code is still in the control of the centralized organization.
Orion's use of the Substrate framework has significant advantages. Even if the power to update the code is centralized in one place, the people running the code may not necessarily follow its command, and cannot efficiently order the distributed nodes to deploy and update the new code uniformly. This is the benefit of the distributed autonomy that blockchain brings, but also a huge drawback. The Bitcoin community is a typical one in this field. Due to the split of the Bitcoin community, some people do not agree to adopt the scheme of isolated witness instead of changing the block size, which splits BCH and brings great damage to the ecology of BTC. Upgrading ETH is also difficult, with each upgrade requiring a long wait to prevent forks caused by unupgraded nodes. EOS makes upgrades a little easier due to its centralized nature, but there are still vicious incidents of forks due to upgrades. Compared to centrally controlled systems, blockchain systems are more difficult and risky to upgrade.
In general, Orion uses the Substrate framework for programming with the following advantages:
- High degree of abstraction, more general purpose, and less development workload. In fact, with the template provided by the framework, developers only need to focus on the storage, function logic and event writing required by their application. An application like CryptoKitties is only a few hundred lines of code. At the same time, using the official front end, you can directly interact with the chain without additional programming.
- The ecology of peripheral tools is relatively complete. For example, based on the official front-end library, it is easy to develop the front-end interactive page of the application chain.
- Since all Runtimes are written in Wasm, the Substrate-based application chain can support online upgrades. This means that when on-chain governance passes an upgrade resolution, the whole node will run the latest version of logic even if it does not manually upgrade the software. This makes on-chain governance and upgrades seamless.
- Currently, the modules of WASM and EVM have been officially given, and it will be very fast to develop a chain that supports smart contracts.
Two of them, 1 and 2, make Substrate-based application chain development very small-team friendly.
The value of blockchain technology lies in application, and developers are the cornerstone of exploring application scenarios and improving user experience. Substrate is a bridge between public chain technology, ecology, and alliance chains and is the most advanced blockchain technology. Polkadot's Relay chain serves as an intermediary chain, while other parachains authenticate and interact with parachains through block validation nodes Validators. Similarly, each parachain can also exist as the Relay chain of other peripheral parachains with infinite expansion. Blockchains developed by Orion using the Substrate framework can still expand the network in the future.
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