Original author: Paradigm data researcher Storm

Compiled by: Odaily Planet Daily Wenser

Editor's note: Network congestion has always been the focus of many players in the chain ecosystem. Solana's network congestion once caused about three-quarters of transactions to be unable to be processed, but this phenomenon is not an isolated case. Many EVM ecosystems, including the Base chain, have similar problems. Paradigm data researcher Storm analyzed and explained this phenomenon based on this. The following is his sharing content.

The problem of low-cost blockchain networks: network resource monopoly

Approximately 68% of the Base chain network has been taken over by a single protocol of questionable utility.

Due to its low usage cost and the problem of mispricing of storage, the current situation of Base chain is that a small number of users monopolize most of the network resources. This has a greater or lesser impact on every low-cost blockchain.

The above image shows the current usage status of Base. The size of each rectangle = the status of each type of contract usage. (Note: The method used to generate this chart is similar to the previous ultra-high resolution scaling research on Ethereum).

What are the existing problems?

Question one:

Due to the existence of XEN, 0.3% of Base users monopolize 67.8% of blockchain network resources.

Question 2:

The state is permanent. The nodes of the Base network now need to permanently store and propagate these XEN-related garbage data.

Question 3:

Storage abuse is likely to continue until gas pricing is redesigned.

What impact does it have on blockchain expansion?

Whether the blockchain network is expanded 100 times or 1,000 times, computing resources need to be used efficiently. It is not feasible to consume most of the resources of the blockchain network so inefficiently.

How bad is it?

In absolute terms, the problem is relatively small. The contract storage size of the Base chain is only about 50 GiB (compared to about 245 GiB on Ethereum). The severity of the problem is gradually decreasing over time. XEN's share peaked in October, occupying about 85% of network resources.

Has the problem been solved?

As of now, there are no effective mitigations to prevent future abuse of network resources. Nothing prevents a new protocol like XEN from popping up and filling the network state with similar garbage data, especially if network fees continue to drop.

Is it just Base that has the problem?

Not really. XEN is present on every major EVM chain. For example, XEN is now the largest smart contract on Ethereum. Over the past year, its usage accounted for 8.8% of all Ethereum network resources, and now it has dropped to 3.5%.

Is XEN an exception?

XEN is just one example of a broader class of activities. When low-cost computing resources are combined with speculative activity, these resources can be used in unexpected ways. Examples include blobscriptions, gas tokens, and Solana’s ORE mining.

What can we do?

In short, storage needs to be repriced to reflect the true burden it places on the network. There are many ways to do this, and they all have varying degrees of impact on the average user. But fundamentally, storage pricing is hard.

Why is storage pricing difficult?

Most operations in trading are easy to price because they happen instantly. Storage activities are different.

Once you pay for storage, that data is stored by the network "forever". So it's like planning pricing for a lifetime subscription. Sooner or later, every blockchain network will need to face the problem of storing this junk data. I've been modeling some potential fixes, but it's still a task to be done.