Linera简介 (Introducing Linera)
This translation is a personal work by Linera enthusiast @Chainguys .The Linera team reserves the right of final explanation.
本翻译为Linera爱好者@Chainguys的个人作品。Linera团队保留最终解释权。
为 web3 带来 web2 的性能和可靠性 (Bringing web2 performance and reliability to web3)
Hello World! I’d like to introduce Linera, the project I founded with the mission to create the first low-latency blockchain that will scale as easily as a web2 application.
你好，世界！现在我想向大家介绍 Linera，这个我创建的项目，其使命是创建第一个可以像 web2 应用程序一样轻松扩展的低延迟区块链。
During my time at Meta/Novi, I had the privilege of working on the latest research in distributed systems. I was particularly passionate about two protocols aiming to revolutionize blockchain scalability: FastPay and Zef. As an infrastructure engineer, I couldn’t wait to put these ideas into practice, but it was clear that such an ambitious project required a dedicated structure and proper financial support.
我在 Meta/Novi 工作期间，有幸从事分布式系统的最新研究。我对FastPay 和 Zefzh额两个意在彻底改变区块链可扩展性的两种协议非常感兴趣。作为一名基础设施工程师，我迫不及待地将这些想法付诸实践，但很明显，这样一个雄心勃勃的项目需要专门的结构和适当的资金支持。
Today, I’m very pleased to announce that we have closed a $6M seed round led by a16z crypto, with participation from top investors including Cygni Capital, Kima Ventures, and Tribe Capital. This funding round will allow us to deliver on our vision of bringing the performance and reliability of web2 to the world of web3. We are excited to bring on board preeminent investors who share our passion for developing strong infrastructure to unlock the full potential of blockchain technologies.
今天，我很高兴地宣布，我们已经完成了由 a16z 领投的 600 万美元种子轮融资，顶级投资者包括 Cygni Capital、Kima Ventures 和 Tribe Capital。本轮融资将使我们能够实现将 web2 的性能和可靠性带入 web3 世界的愿景。我们很高兴能邀请杰出的投资者加入，他们与我们一样热衷于开发强大的基础设施，进而释放区块链技术的全部潜力。
为什么我们需要低延迟区块链 (Why we need low-latency blockchains)
Blockchains have historically excelled in use cases where censorship resistance was the most important function. Yet, a growing number of applications also require low latency — that is, predictably low confirmation times in response to user actions. Such use cases include, for instance: retail payments, micro-payments for gaming apps, proprietary trading, and bridges between blockchains. Unfortunately, confirmation times in the fastest blockchains still typically take a number of seconds due to the overhead of mempools and complex coordination between validators.
是区块链历来最重借出的功能就是在用例中表现出色的“抗审查性”。然而，越来越多的应用也需要低延迟—即，可预测的，响应用户操作的低确认时间。此类用例包括：零售支付、游戏的小额支付、自营交易以及区块链之间跨链。不幸的是，由于内存池的开销和验证者之间的复杂协调，最快区块链中的确认时间通常仍然需要几秒钟。
The FastPay and Zef academic work that I contributed to has shown that simple operations such as payments can be greatly accelerated by removing mempools altogether and minimizing interactions between validators. In this family of protocols, blockchain clients communicate directly with validators to submit and confirm new account operations.
我参与的 FastPay 和 Zef 的学术工作表明，简单的操作，如支付，通过完全移除内存池和最小化验证者之间的交互，可以大大加快速度。在这一系列协议中，区块链客户端直接与验证者通信来提交和确认新账户操作。
The Linera blockchain aims to generalize this approach and take it to production, enabling most account-based operations to be confirmed in a fraction of a second.
Linera 区块链旨在推广这种方法并将其投入实际生产，使大多数基于帐户的操作能够在几分之一秒内得到确认。
线性扩展的案例 (The case for linear scaling)
Nowadays, large internet applications are built from the ground up with scalability in mind. Users rely on the internet for daily activities such as navigation, shopping, and video streaming. They have very low tolerance for slow-downs or discontinuity of service.
现今，大型互联网应用是从头开始构建的，并已经考虑了可扩展性。用户依赖互联网进行日常活动，例如导航、购物和视频流。它们对速度变慢或服务中断的容忍度非常低。
Web2 applications have not always met such levels of scalability and reliability. Arguably, the breakthrough came from the industry’s transition in the 2000s to a strict form of horizontal scalability called “linear scaling”. The database community explains it well: linear scaling means that it is always possible to double the capacity of a system by doubling the number of machines.
Web2 应用并不总是能达到这样的可扩展性和可靠性水平。可以说，这一突破来自于 2000 年代行业向一种称为“线性扩展”的严格水平扩展形式的转变。数据库社区解释得很好：线性扩展意味着总是可以通过将系统的容量翻倍来翻倍机器数量。
Until now, blockchains have prioritized a “sequential” model of execution that allows arbitrary interactions (e.g. flash loans) between user accounts and smart contracts in a succession of transactions. Unfortunately, sequential execution prevents linear scaling. We believe that a paradigm shift comparable to the evolution of databases from SQL to NoSQL is necessary for future decentralized systems to provide low-latency guarantees at arbitrary scale.
到目前为止，区块链优先考虑“序列”执行模型，该模型允许用户账户和智能合约在一系列交易中进行任意交互（例如闪电贷）。不幸的是，序列执行阻止了线性扩展。 我们认为，与数据库从 SQL 到 NoSQL 的演变相类似的范式转变，对于未来的去中心化系统提供任意规模的低延迟保证是必要的。
The Linera project will develop and promote a new model of execution suitable for linear scaling. In such a model, operations on separate user accounts will run concurrently by default — that is, in separate threads of execution. In this way, execution can always be scaled out by adding new processing units to each validator. In traditional web2 architectures, such additional processing units, known as “workers” or “shards”, are provisioned on demand in data-centers or by cloud providers.
Linera 项目将开发和推广适用于线性扩展的全新的执行模型。在这样的模型中，默认情况下，对不同用户帐户的操作将同时运行——即在不同的执行线程中。通过这种方式，始终可以通过向每个验证者添加新的处理单元来扩展执行。在传统的 web2 架构中，这些额外的处理单元（称为“worker”或“shards”）由数据中心或云提供商按需提供。
等等，如果验证者是数据中心，这仍然是一个去中心化协议吗？ (Wait, is this still a decentralized protocol if validators are data-centers?)
The now-classical “blockchain trilemma” asserts the difficulty of simultaneously achieving scalability, security, and decentralization. While this observation certainly holds for validators of fixed size, we believe that insufficient efforts have been made in the definition and implementation of a satisfying notion of decentralization for large, high-throughput validators. In particular, auditing high-throughput systems using commodity hardware has historically been challenging because a single auditor cannot possibly run all transactions.
现在，经典的“区块链困难三角”断言了同时实现可扩展性、安全性和去中心化的极高难度。这一观察虽然适用于固定规模的验证者，但我们认为在为大型、高吞吐量验证者进行定义和实施令人满意的去中心化概念方面，所做的努力还不够。特别是，使用商品硬件，审计高吞吐量系统历来具有挑战性，因为单个审计员不可能运行所有交易。
Our goal is to ensure decentralization of the Linera protocol using state-of-the-art proof-of-stake mechanisms together with scalable auditing procedures to ensure full accountability of validators.
我们的目标是使用最先进的共识证明机制(state-of-the-art proof-of-stake mechanisms)和可扩展的审计程序来确保 Linera 协议的去中心化，以确保验证者的全面承担责任。
To support large-scale auditing by the community, we intend to leverage the concurrent execution model of Linera. To the same effect, we are also closely following the rapid and continuous progress made in the field of validity proofs.
为了支持社区的大规模审计，我们打算利用 Linera 的并发执行模型。同样，我们也在密切关注有效性证明领域取得的快速持续进展。
这仅仅是开始 (This is just the beginning)
We’re currently working on implementing the Linera protocol and the first steps towards an open-source launch.
我们目前正致力于实施 Linera 协议以及迈向开源发布的第一步。
Our founding team comprises engineers and researchers (ex-Zcash, ex-Meta/Novi, City University of London) with strong technical backgrounds both in web2 and web3. We believe that this combination of skills makes us uniquely positioned to execute on our vision to bring high performance and high reliability to decentralized applications.
我们的创始团队包括工程师和研究人员（前 Zcash、前 Meta/Novi、伦敦城市大学）在 web2 和 web3 方面具有强大的技术背景。我们相信，这种技能组合使我们具有独特的优势，可以实现我们的愿景，为去中心化应用带来高性能和高可靠性。
我们正在招聘 (We’re hiring)
We’re passionate about blockchain technologies, distributed systems, and the Rust programming language. Visit our website, follow us on Twitter, or drop us a note to learn more about our open positions.
我们对区块链技术、分布式系统和 Rust 编程语言充满热情。访问我们的 网站，在 Twitter 上关注我们，或 给我们留言了解更多关于我们的空缺职位。
– Mathieu Baudet, Founder and CEO of Linera
—Linera 创始人兼首席执行官 Mathieu Baudet
