State Channel as a Service Based on a Distributed and Decentralized Web

Abstract

Currently, developers and researchers are dedicated to finding better ways to achieve greater scalability of various blockchain platforms. Focused on the Ethereum blockchain platform, the state channels are currently the only maturely researched and implemented a solution for achieving scalability. However, there are still several problems, such as transparency of state channel networks, transaction traceability, and the incapability that the off-chain state is transferred back on the blockchain network in an ad-hoc manner. To solve the aforementioned problems, we propose a novel state channel solution in the form of a State Channel as a Service, which, although off-chain, still incorporates a secure distributed and decentralized network. This solves the challenge of transparency and traceability while giving users the confidence that only the valid last off-chain state is transferred back on the blockchain network. With the proposed solution, there is no need for users to monitor state channel activities for possible malicious actions. Implementation was performed in the form of a payment channel system, presenting a potential use case for the SCaaS. Furthermore, we performed a security and performance analysis, which shows that the solution is secure and by a factor of 12 more efficient than the classical on-chain payment systems. To evaluate and prove the contributions of the proposed solution, quantitative, and qualitative comparisons with selected related works (i.e., Raiden and Celer) were also performed.