IOTA Foundation Explores DAG Technology to Overcome Blockchain Limitations

The
IOTA
Foundation’s ‘Beyond
the
Chain’
workshop,
held
on
May
31,
2024,
at
Trinity
College
Dublin,
provided
a
comprehensive
look
at
how
Directed
Acyclic
Graph
(DAG)
technology
can
address
the
inherent
limitations
of
traditional
blockchains,
according
to
the

IOTA
Foundation
Blog.

Insights
from
the
Workshop

The
workshop
was
part
of
the
IEEE
International
Conference
on
Blockchain
and





Cryptocurrency,
which
ran
from
May
27
to
May
31,
2024.
The
event
featured
contributions
from
several
IOTA
Foundation
members
and
attracted
a
significant
audience
despite
being
held
on
the
last
day
of
the
conference.

Keynote
by
Shai
Wyborski

Shai
Wyborski,
a
researcher
at
Kaspa,
delivered
the
keynote,
emphasizing
the
efficiency
and
scalability
advantages
of
transitioning
from
traditional
blockchains
to
DAG
structures.
He
highlighted
the
drawbacks
of
blockchains,
such
as
high
orphan
rates
and
reduced
parallelism,
which
hinder
performance.

Wyborski
discussed
various
blockDAG
implementations
like
SPECTRE,
Tangle,
and
GHOSTDAG,
which
achieve
scalable
and
secure
consensus
through
topological
sorting.
He
also
introduced
parameterless
protocols
like
DAGKnight,
which
adapt
dynamically
to
network
conditions,
improving
confirmation
times
and
network
performance.

The
keynote
concluded
with
a
discussion
on
creating
rational
miner
incentives,
exploring
new
fee
market
models
within
DAG
structures,
and
addressing
scalability
through
innovative
consensus
mechanisms.

Interactive
Sessions

Following
the
keynote,
the
workshop
featured
four
interactive
sessions
based
on
research
papers
submitted
to
the
event.

Secure
Transmission
of
Immutable
Data
for
IoT
Services

Andreas
Baumgartner
from
Chemnitz
University
of
Technology
presented
a
paper
on
secure
data
transmission
for
low-power,
long-range
IoT
services
using
the
DAG-based
DLT
IOTA
Streams
on
top
of
the
LoRaWAN
protocol.
The
paper
proposed
a
network
hierarchy
to
enable
low-power
IoT
services,
addressing
challenges
like
small
payload
sizes
and
duty
cycle
regulations.

Shared
Objects
in
Sui
Smart
Contracts

Roman
Overko
from
the
IOTA
Foundation
discussed
his
study
on
shared
objects
in
Sui
smart
contracts.
The
paper
explored
the
unique
feature
of
the
Sui
platform,
which
distinguishes
between
shared
and
owned
objects,
analyzing
the
frequency
of
transactions
involving
shared
objects
and
their
contention
levels.

Name
Management
Using
IOTA

Teppei
Okada
from
Ritsumeikan
University
presented
a
method
to
prevent
content
poisoning
attacks
in
information-centric
networking
(ICN)
using
IOTA’s
distributed
ledger
technology.
The
paper
proposed
managing
content
names
with
IOTA
to
block
the
tampering
of
content
registered
on
the
system.

Systematization
of
Knowledge:
DAG-based
Consensus
Protocols

Mayank
Raikwar
from
the
University
of
Oslo,
along
with
Nikita
Polyanskii
and
Sebastian
Mueller
from
the
IOTA
Foundation,
provided
an
overview
of
DAG-based
consensus
protocols.
Their
paper
evaluated
the
impact
of
these
protocols
on
performance
and
their
tradeoffs
concerning
consistency,
availability,
and
partition
tolerance.

Future
Outlook

The ‘Beyond
the
Chain’
workshop
highlighted
the
potential
of
DAG-based
DLTs
to
overcome
the
limitations
of
traditional
blockchains.
The
event
underscored
the
importance
of
continued
research
and
development
in
this
field.
The
next
workshop
is
scheduled
to
be
held
at
the
University
of
Pisa
in
June
2025.

Image
source:
Shutterstock