By Daniel Luca
We are starting to see a new approach, a new type of blockchain network, that mimics what an existing network does and is, but they don’t do it exactly as the original one.
This new approach has a few characteristics that define it. It mirrors an existing chain but changes the original rules. Mirroring the existing chain is done by replaying the transactions just as they are, but changing the original rules makes them incompatible with the original chain. This creates room for new features to flourish but also some interesting problems, which we will explore in this article.
One project stands out as the pioneer of this still-early movement. That project is Shadow. Their promise is “free logs,” and maybe you have heard of their successful round recently.
https://x.com/_shadowxyz/status/1732049145140015142?s=20
In this article, we explore both the potential and the challenges of a private Doppelganger Network. We seek to determine if this truly signals a new era of advanced side-chain computation and storage or a plunge back into centralized structures.
First, it’s important to understand what Shadow is and how it achieves free events.
“Shadow events” are a novel mechanism to generate detailed event data for Ethereum smart contracts, bypassing the cost typically associated with log events. The core of this innovation lies in the concept of Doppelganger Networks, emitted on a parallel chain that “shadows” the Ethereum mainnet.
This effect is achieved by replaying Ethereum transactions on a shadow chain, using an enhanced version of the original smart contract code to allow for more complex calculations and detailed data output.
To accomplish this manually, one needs to take several steps. First, fork the mainnet. Next, change the source code of the smart contract you're watching. Then, include the calculation and extra events you want to produce. Finally, track the new events that are created. Shadow does most of this for you out of the box.
The biggest innovation is the fact that we realized we could mirror a network, with the possibility of extending its features without making any hard fork to the rules of the mirrored system. This is what I call a Doppelganger Network. It’s almost like the original one but slightly different.
Shadowing was something we were always able to do, although we probably didn’t realize we could also change the rules of our local representation. Changing the rules opens up possibilities to not just emit events but also add storage and attach additional computation. And because this is a private fork, we NEED to trust the entity running the fork. This is where the downsides start to show themselves.
We are conditioned to have a gag reflex when anyone mentions centralized technology, power, or companies; at the same time, we hold decentralized technology to a higher value by default.
