A side chain is defined for one specific use case. There can be multiple side chains where different tasks are distributed accordingly for improving the efficiency of processing. Maybe one application needs to optimize for high speeds and another needs to optimize for large computations.
As an engineer and an entrepreneur, I truly believe blockchain technology is going to revolutionize the world. One of the biggest hurdles we need to tackle in the blockchain industry is scalability. Ethereum can only handle 15 transactions per second. I previously wrote about why that will prevent blockchain from going mainstream and how DAG could potentially be a winner.
Another technology that could see more widespread use in the coming years is side chains. A side chain is defined for one specific use case. There can be multiple side chains where different tasks are distributed accordingly for improving the efficiency of processing. Maybe one application needs to optimize for high speeds and another needs to optimize for large computations. In any case, side chains can be used to handle commercial blockchain usage. CryptoKitties would have greatly benefitted from an optimized high-speed side chain. At one point, they jammed up the Ethereum blockchain with 25% of all transactions coming from their application.
Side chains were first written about in a paper called Enabling Blockchain Innovations With Pegged Side Chains. One project that leverages heavily on side chains is Aelf. According to their white paper, Aelf is a multi-chain cloud computing blockchain framework.
There are a few things that make this framework powerful should the team execute their plans flawlessly: consensus, interoperability, and scheduler.
Source/More: Explaining Side Chains, The Next Breakthrough In Blockchain
