Techniques to alleviate blockchain bloat: Potentials, challenges, and recommendations

Abstract

Blockchain (BC) bloat, characterized by excessive data growth on BC networks, presents a pressing challenge. The need for a comprehensive study addressing BC bloat solutions arises due to the scarcity of knowledge in this emerging area. This study advances knowledge along with practical insights and inspires innovative approaches to address BC bloat. This research explores various techniques proposed to combat BC bloat. Two technique themes are identified: on-chain and off-chain techniques. On-chain techniques focus on updating the consensus mechanism, block size, or database partition. This study identified five on-chain techniques: structural modification, pruning, sharding, ephemeral BC, and zk-SNARKs. Off-chain techniques focus on processing in parallel, bundling transactions, or handling transactions off-chain. Further, three off-chain techniques identified are off-chain storage, historical data storage, and light clients’ techniques. These recommendations aim to optimize resources use, enhance scalability, and maintain data integrity. However, these may compromise several BC capabilities, such as security, privacy, and data loss. The applicability of these techniques for resource-constrained devices is also explored. Future research should include further investigation into the performance and applicability of these techniques, especially in resource-constrained environments like IoT and fog computing.