What is a Layer 1 Blockchain?
A Layer 1 Blockchain is the foundation for all blockchain layers and enables developers to build upon it. The Layer 1 blockchain will be home to an ecosystem of decentralised applications. Layer 1 blockchains are responsible for maintaining security, validating transactions and overall efficiency.
As the foundation, applications and secondary blockchains known as Layer 2 networks can be built upon it.
How Does a Layer 1 Blockchain Work?
Every Layer 1 blockchain in existence runs on a specific consensus mechanism and these are most commonly known as Proof-of-Stake (PoS) or Proof-of-Work (PoW). There are no restrictions and innovations to new consensus mechanisms are welcomed.
What is a Consensus Mechanism?
Consensus Mechanisms allow blockchains to achieve agreements across a decentralised network of nodes/computers. The consensus mechanism ensures that the blockchain is functioning efficiently and securely, in real-time so that every transaction taking place is legitimate.
Layer 1 Blockchain Features & Functionalities
Layer 1 blockchains hold many responsibilities and complete specific tasks and features to maintain a healthy network. These main features include:
Security
The security is dependent on the consensus mechanism that blockchains use. Take Bitcoin ($BTC) for example which uses Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Ethereum ($ETH) which is a Proof-of-Stake (PoS).
Transaction Finality
This process is done to ensure that any transaction made on the network cannot be altered or undone. Even though transactions/trades can be done on subchains or other layers, the transaction still has to be finalised on the Layer 1 blockchain.
Block Production
Blocks are data structures which store and record transactional data permanently. Blocks are produced by either Miners (PoW) or Validators (PoS) and recorded on the Layer 1 blockchain.
Native Currency
All Layer 1 blockchains require a native currency to use as a form of transaction fee or reward for mining/validating blocks. For example, Bitcoin has its currency, $BTC, the same goes with Avalanche ($AVAX), BNB Chain ($BNB) and so on.
Layer 1 Scalability
One huge problem for Layer 1 blockchains is scalability. If the Layer 1 is not capable of scaling, then surviving in a world of mass crypto adoption would be next to impossible. No one wants to experience ridiculously expensive transaction fees or slow processing times, that’s a fact.
This is where innovation is pivotal and we have solutions that help these Layer 1s to scale to their ultimate form such as:
Consensus Mechanism & Protocol Changes
To create a more sustainable network, most blockchains will fine-tune the block confirmation time for faster processing or they will increase the size of data within a single block. Alternatively, some blockchains will completely upgrade their consensus mechanisms, for example, switching from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake or Delegated Proof-of-Stake.
Zero-Knowledge Proofs
Possibly the most popular scaling solution out there for decentralised applications (dApps) are zk-Proofs. This allows dApps to verify transactions without having to do all the security checks. In layman’s terms, this allows for faster transactions to be conducted!
Sharding
Sharding is simply a technique which divides the blockchain’s entire network into smaller fractions, called ‘Shards’. Each of the Shards is made up of its own data, independent but can still communicate with other Shards.
The Sharding technique allows the network to increase the overall scalability of the blockchain, allowing more users to access and interact with the network at any given time.
Conclusion
Layer 1 blockchains are the very foundation on which our favourite decentralized applications and Layer 2 networks are built. There are many Layer 1 blockchains focusing on different use cases, using different consensus mechanisms and with different ecosystems but overall, they share one overall mission; onboard the world to Web3.
