LibraryScaling2020Design paperCorpus record
OHIE: Blockchain Scaling Made Simple
OHIE. Haifeng Yu, Ivica Nikolić, Ruomu Hou, Prateek Saxena and Joseph Bonneau.
Run many parallel Nakamoto chains. A block is assigned to a chain by its hash. The safety argument stays close to bitcoin's, and the throughput is the sum.
A reading of the public paper. Not a copy, not a benchmark, and not a claim about any later network.
A parallel-chain pitch should say how a miner is prevented from extending only the chain that pays them.
The five-minute read
The defect
High-throughput designs were inventing new fork choices. OHIE asks whether parallel bitcoin chains, with a careful assignment of blocks, already scale.
The proposal
Run many parallel Nakamoto chains. A block is assigned to a chain by its hash. The safety argument stays close to bitcoin's, and the throughput is the sum.
Parallel chains are not shards with their own trust assumptions.
Assignment by the hash is what stops a miner from pouring every block into one chain.
The bound
The paper's throughput is a model.
One action, walked through
- Mine a block.
- The hash picks which parallel chain it extends.
- A client confirms a transaction when its chain has the depth the analysis requires.
- Do the chains share security or only share a brand?
The argument, unpacked
What the paper is for
A parallel-chain pitch should say how a miner is prevented from extending only the chain that pays them.
What happened after
Later parallel-chain designs cite OHIE as the simple composition argument.
What has to be true
- The paper's throughput is a model.
- It is not a sharded execution environment. Contracts that share state are a different problem.
- It does not remove the underlying proof-of-work assumption.
What happened after the paper
Later parallel-chain designs cite OHIE as the simple composition argument.
What to check before you use the idea
- How is a block assigned to a chain?
- Do the chains share security or only share a brand?
- What confirms a transaction?
Terms
- Parallel chains
- Several Nakamoto chains whose security composes.
- Assignment
- The rule that places a new block onto one of those chains.
The problem the paper names
High-throughput designs were inventing new fork choices. OHIE asks whether parallel bitcoin chains, with a careful assignment of blocks, already scale.
What the design proposes
- Parallel chains are not shards with their own trust assumptions.
- Assignment by the hash is what stops a miner from pouring every block into one chain.
- Confirmation still follows from the underlying chain rule.
How the mechanism is specified
- Mine a block.
- The hash picks which parallel chain it extends.
- A client confirms a transaction when its chain has the depth the analysis requires.
What this page does not treat as proven
- The paper's throughput is a model.
- It is not a sharded execution environment. Contracts that share state are a different problem.
- It does not remove the underlying proof-of-work assumption.
Why a venture studio still reads it
A parallel-chain pitch should say how a miner is prevented from extending only the chain that pays them.
This is Blockchain Lab's reading of a public design paper. It is not the paper, not a copy of it, and not an offer of tokens, equity, custody or a partnership. Later network behaviour can diverge from the text. Nothing here is investment, legal or technical advice.
Research status: Design paper. Last reviewed: 1 October 2026. This is a reading of a public paper, not investment, legal or security advice.