Neo Plasma：以太坊的可扩展性救世主从灰烬中归来

2017年，以太坊的可扩展性问题促使Vitalik Buterin提出了Plasma，这是一种旨在减轻主链交易结算负担的解决方案。然而，由于可替代性问题和操作员不当行为，最初的尝试面临着实用性挑战。最近，Buterin 凭借区块链技术的进步重新审视了 Plasma，包括零知识技术和 INTMAX 的 Plasma Next 无状态架构，为解决困扰其最初迭代的问题带来了新的希望。

Neo Plasma: The Resurrection of Ethereum's Scalability Savior

Neo Plasma：以太坊可扩展性救星的复活

A Promising Revival

充满希望的复兴

In the depths of 2017, Ethereum found itself entangled in a web of scalability woes. Its meteoric rise had ushered in burgeoning popularity, but this very success precipitated a formidable challenge: severe bottlenecks and skyrocketing gas fees. Enter Vitalik Buterin, the visionary behind Ethereum, who embarked on a quest to unravel this Gordian knot. From the depths of his innovative thinking emerged Plasma, a groundbreaking construct poised to alleviate the burden on Ethereum's main chain.

2017 年末，以太坊发现自己陷入了可扩展性困境之中。它的迅速崛起带来了迅速普及，但正是这种成功引发了巨大的挑战：严重的瓶颈和飞涨的天然气费。 Vitalik Buterin 登场，他是以太坊背后的远见卓识者，他开始寻求解开这个棘手的结。从他的创新思维深处诞生了 Plasma，这是一个突破性的结构，旨在减轻以太坊主链的负担。

Plasma: The Dream and Its Downfall

等离子：梦想及其破灭

Plasma's genesis lay in its ingenious solution to Ethereum's consensus conundrum. By offloading a substantial portion of transaction settlement to a secondary layer, Plasma sought to alleviate the strain on the congested main chain. This secondary layer would maintain a record of state changes, presenting only the crucial updates to Ethereum's mainnet.

Plasma 的起源在于它巧妙地解决了以太坊的共识难题。通过将大部分交易结算转移到二级层，Plasma 试图减轻拥挤的主链的压力。第二层将保存状态变化的记录，仅提供以太坊主网的关键更新。

In theory, Plasma's architecture, built upon Merkle trees, offered an efficient means of tracking asset ownership. Operators within this system were tasked with generating blocks that encompassed Merkle roots and the branches pertinent to specific users. This intricate mechanism aimed to generate a streamlined system, meticulously monitoring asset possession and capturing their movement in a scalable and low-intensity manner.

理论上，Plasma 的架构基于 Merkle 树，提供了一种跟踪资产所有权的有效方法。该系统内的操作员的任务是生成包含 Merkle 根和与特定用户相关的分支的块。这种复杂的机制旨在生成一个精简的系统，仔细监控资产占有情况并以可扩展和低强度的方式捕获资产的移动。

However, as Plasma's development progressed, its promise began to unravel. The complexities inherent in asset fungibility posed a formidable challenge. When assets lacked uniqueness and shared identical characteristics, it became increasingly arduous to ascertain their ownership. Early iterations of Plasma attempted to circumvent this obstacle by transforming each token into a non-fungible token (NFT). However, the computational overhead associated with this approach far outweighed its benefits.

然而，随着 Plasma 开发的进展，它的承诺开始兑现。资产可替代性固有的复杂性提出了巨大的挑战。当资产缺乏唯一性且具有相同特征时，确定其所有权就变得越来越困难。 Plasma 的早期迭代试图通过将每个代币转换为不可替代代币（NFT）来规避这一障碍。然而，与这种方法相关的计算开销远远超过了它的好处。

As Plasma's architecture evolved to encompass more intricate structures, such as pools, its foundation began to crumble. The system's inability to verify asset ownership in such complex scenarios rendered it obsolete. Furthermore, the complexities that arose as developers ventured into novel smart contract use cases further ensnared Plasma, eroding its scalability potential.

随着 Plasma 的架构发展到包含更复杂的结构（例如水池），它的基础开始崩溃。该系统无法在如此复杂的场景中验证资产所有权，使其变得过时。此外，随着开发人员冒险尝试新颖的智能合约用例，出现的复杂性进一步陷入了 Plasma 的困境，削弱了其可扩展性潜力。

Misbehaving Operators: A Fatal Flaw

操作不当：一个致命缺陷

Another Achilles heel of the original Plasma design stemmed from the potential for operator misconduct. Operators had the power to disrupt the system by publishing invalid or unavailable blocks. Each scenario presented its own set of complications, exacerbating the already complex dispute resolution process. If a user fell victim to an operator's malfeasance, they were granted a seven-day window to lodge a challenge, accompanied by irrefutable evidence via Merkle trees, outlining the discrepancy between the intended and actual block content. This arduous process introduced additional complexity and delays, undermining the system's scalability.

最初 Plasma 设计的另一个致命弱点是操作员可能存在不当行为。运营商有权通过发布无效或不可用的区块来破坏系统。每种情况都有其自身的复杂性，加剧了本已复杂的争议解决过程。如果用户成为运营商不当行为的受害者，他们将获得 7 天的时间提出质疑，并附上通过 Merkle 树提供的无可辩驳的证据，概述预期区块内容与实际区块内容之间的差异。这一艰巨的过程带来了额外的复杂性和延迟，破坏了系统的可扩展性。

Breakthrough Innovations Resurrecting Neo Plasma

突破性创新复兴新等离子体

Despite the setbacks that plagued the original Plasma concept, its potential remained tantalizing. Vitalik Buterin, undeterred, revisited Plasma in late 2023, armed with groundbreaking advancements in blockchain technology. This renewed pursuit, dubbed "Neo Plasma," holds immense promise, contingent upon the Web3 community's ability to harness its potential while sidestepping its predecessors' pitfalls.

尽管最初的 Plasma 概念遇到了挫折，但它的潜力仍然诱人。 Vitalik Buterin 没有被吓倒，在 2023 年底，凭借区块链技术的突破性进展，重新审视了 Plasma。这种被称为“Neo Plasma”的新追求具有巨大的前景，这取决于 Web3 社区是否有能力利用其潜力，同时避开其前辈的陷阱。

Zero-Knowledge Technology: A Game-Changer

零知识技术：游戏规则改变者

The advent of Zero-Knowledge technology, particularly ZK-SNARKS, has emerged as a game-changer for on-chain finance. ZK-SNARKS, a form of multi-party computation (MPC), fill a critical void in the realm of on-chain finance. While encryption safeguards data privacy on the blockchain, it hinders interaction (e.g., transactions, information sharing) without decryption.

零知识技术，特别是 ZK-SNARKS 的出现，已经成为链上金融游戏规则的改变者。 ZK-SNARKS 是一种多方计算 (MPC) 形式，填补了链上金融领域的一个关键空白。虽然加密可以保护区块链上的数据隐私，但它会阻碍未经解密的交互（例如交易、信息共享）。

ZK-SNARKS, however, empower users to maintain complete privacy while engaging in interactions. This unique characteristic aligns perfectly with the requirements of on-chain activity. As Buterin himself has expounded, incorporating ZK technology into Plasma could effectively eliminate operator misconduct, a major flaw in the original design. This would render the waiting period for user challenges obsolete, streamlining the dispute resolution process.

然而，ZK-SNARKS 使用户能够在互动时保持完全的隐私。这种独特的特性完全符合链上活动的要求。正如 Buterin 本人所阐述的那样，将 ZK 技术融入 Plasma 中可以有效消除操作员的不当行为，这是原始设计中的一个主要缺陷。这将消除用户质疑的等待期，从而简化争议解决流程。

Numerous platforms are actively exploring the integration of ZK technology, and it is highly likely that novel structures will emerge, leveraging Plasma's core principles with a ZK twist.

许多平台正在积极探索 ZK 技术的集成，并且很可能会出现新颖的结构，利用 Plasma 的核心原理和 ZK 技术。

INTMAX's Plasma Next: Stateless Scalability

INTMAX 的 Plasma Next：无状态可扩展性

Scalability remains a formidable challenge as complexity and transaction volume continue to escalate. Failure to address this issue could extinguish Plasma's resurgence, as "slow" and "expensive" are epithets that can doom any platform.

随着复杂性和交易量不断增加，可扩展性仍然是一个巨大的挑战。如果不能解决这个问题，Plasma 的复兴可能会失败，因为“慢”和“贵”这些绰号可能会毁掉任何平台。

A visionary team at INTMAX, led by co-founder Leona Hioki, who has dedicated years to studying Plasma's intricacies, may have devised a solution, or at least a substantial portion thereof, to make Neo Plasma a reality. The key lies in their concept of "stateless" architecture, dubbed Plasma Next.

INTMAX 的联合创始人 Leona Hioki 领导的富有远见的团队多年来致力于研究 Plasma 的复杂性，他们可能已经设计出一种解决方案，或者至少是其中的很大一部分，使 Neo Plasma 成为现实。关键在于他们的“无状态”架构概念，称为 Plasma Next。

This stateless architecture is made possible by constructing a system where users maintain control over their own data, while validators store only a minimal, fixed-size state. Technically categorized as a pseudo-stateless solution, it effectively addresses the primary scalability bottleneck. With a constant-size state, the cost per block remains constant and negligible, allowing for scalability regardless of the number of users.

这种无状态架构是通过构建一个系统来实现的，在该系统中，用户保持对自己数据的控制，而验证器仅存储最小的、固定大小的状态。从技术上讲，它被归类为伪无状态解决方案，它有效地解决了主要的可扩展性瓶颈。在大小恒定的状态下，每个块的成本保持恒定且可以忽略不计，从而无论用户数量有多少，都可以实现可扩展性。

The implications of INTMAX's Plasma Next are profound. Payments and rewards can be processed for a mere $0.000000001 in DAI, introducing unprecedented levels of efficiency for micro- and even nano-transactions.

INTMAX Plasma Next 的影响是深远的。只需 0.000000001 美元的 DAI 即可处理付款和奖励，为微型甚至纳米交易带来前所未有的效率水平。

The Road Ahead

前方的路

Plasma's initial inception generated immense enthusiasm, and its subsequent challenges ignited a wave of dedicated developers determined to overcome its obstacles and craft a version that fulfilled its promise of speed, affordability, and scalability. The necessary technological advancements have finally caught up, and with the advent of ZK-SNARKS and INTMAX's Plasma Next, multiple platforms are racing to bring this vision to fruition. Neo Plasma is poised to realize the potential that captivated the blockchain community in 2017.

Plasma 最初的诞生引发了巨大的热情，随后的挑战激发了一批专注的开发人员，决心克服其障碍并打造一个能够实现其速度、可负担性和可扩展性承诺的版本。必要的技术进步终于赶上了，随着 ZK-SNARKS 和 INTMAX Plasma Next 的出现，多个平台正在竞相实现这一愿景。 Neo Plasma 有望实现 2017 年吸引区块链社区的潜力。