BlockSTM: Scaling Blockchain Execution

Rati Gelashvili

4.28.23

BlockSTM is a parallel execution engine for smart contracts, built around the principles of Software Transactional Memory. Transactions are grouped in blocks, and every execution of the block must yield the same deterministic outcome. Here, Rati Gelashvili (Aptos) explores how BlockSTM further enforces that the outcome is consistent with executing transactions according to a preset order, leveraging this order to dynamically detect dependencies and avoid conflicts during speculative transaction execution. At the core of BlockSTM is a novel, low-overhead collaborative scheduler of execution and validation tasks.

About the presenter

Rati Gelashvili obtained his PhD in 2017 from MIT with research centered around the complexity of synchronization. Rati did a postdoctoral fellowship with Professor Faith Ellen at the University of Toronto, after which he was an engineering team lead at NeuralMagic and a research scientist at Novi. Rati is currently Blockchain researcher and member of the founding team at Aptos. twitter: @rgelash

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