Web3 Applications Face Speed Challenges Due To Data Indexing

According to Cointelegraph, decentralized applications (DApps), also known as Web3 applications, often experience slower performance compared to their Web2 counterparts. This is primarily due to the need to organize blockchain data from multiple sources. Maxim Legg, CEO of Pangea, a decentralized data indexing solution, highlighted that data indexing could address the speed bottleneck faced by Web3 applications. Legg explained that data from RPC nodes, smart contracts, and other blockchain infrastructure can accumulate to hundreds of terabytes on high-throughput chains. Indexing involves organizing this raw blockchain data to facilitate efficient recall later. He emphasized that this is a significant infrastructure issue that should be resolved once, rather than individually by each DApp developer. However, many Web3 developers are compelled to create in-house indexing solutions, which are often inefficient, overly complex, and time-consuming. The throughput of a blockchain, measured in transactions per second (TPS), directly impacts the volume of on-chain data that must be indexed by a DApp interacting with that chain. In October, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined plans to scale the Ethereum base layer and its layer-2 scaling solutions to process over 100,000 transactions per second combined. These plans also aim to enhance interoperability between Ethereum and its numerous layer-2 networks. At the DevCon 2024 conference, StarkWare CEO Ben Sasson mentioned that Starknet, an Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution, aims to quadruple its TPS within three months, potentially rivaling the Solana network's throughput. Similarly, the layer-2 solution ZKsync is targeting higher throughput, with developers aiming to increase it to 10,000 TPS by 2025 while reducing transaction fees to as low as $0.0001. Solana's non-voting throughput currently ranges from 800 to 1,050 TPS, and its high-throughput, monolithic design has attracted significant developer interest, positioning it as a leading ecosystem for development in 2024.