Mintlayer Documentation
Introduction #
Mintlayer is a long-term, secure solution for scaling and accelerating the future of decentralized finance.
Today, sustainability is rarely considered when designing blockchain technology. Consequently, we are presented with a problem where many existing and dominating networks face a cluster of issues. Blockchains get clogged, causing a spike in transaction fees, and their users face high barriers of running a node. This sacrifices the core feature of the blockchain technology: decentralization.
Currently, the DeFi ecosystem runs on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, where nodes can only be managed by specialized servers rather than average users. This policy achieves nothing in terms of the chain’s usability: fees are skyrocketing and most users are left outside of the blockchain’s governing decisions. These conditions pose security threats for daily users that mostly rely on light nodes or custodians, and lead to more centralized project choices. Several examples, such as rollbacks and fork upgrades, end up being discussed within a very tiny niche of users, primarily miners or the most influential public figures.
The lack of future-proof sustainability and long-term plans for scalability, combined with a complex technical architecture, make Ethereum an unsuitable long-term solution for truly decentralized finance. The clogged network cannot guarantee proper functionality of DEXs without off-chain layer solutions such as the Lightning Network, while gigantic nodes have increasingly slow syncing time. Moreover, the built-in Turing-completeness, which is part of the protocol, causes users and investors to encounter risks while interacting with smart contracts.
Mintlayer is creating the very first sustainable architecture for decentralized finance, inheriting its security model from Bitcoin.
