Plasma is a proposed framework used to increase the scalability of the Ethereum network. The proposal was to compose the Ethereum network into a tree hierarchy of child chains which are all connected to the parent/main chain, Ethereum. This allows each child chain in plasma to perform computation of smart contracts in order to reduce the demand on the main chain, resulting in the main chain solely needing to focus on the integrity and security of the entire Ethereum network.
The communication between the main chain and child chains is secured by using a fraud-proof implementation. This security can run on top of the current Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism.
The fraud-proof system ensures, among other things, that users:
– Can report malicious nodes.
– Are able to protect their crypto assets.
– Can exit transactions.
As mentioned before, Plasma is one of several layer 2 scaling solutions that have been proposed to make the Ethereum network scalable. Other layer 2 solutions are side chains, zk-Rollups and Optimistic Rollups.
