Minimum Viable Plasma requires users to actively monitor and challenge exit attempts, but many users are offline most of the time. One developer suggests using an on-chain EDCC (or smart contract) to probabilistically verify the plasma chain. Though the proposal does address the concern in a wide range of scenarios, it is not a universal solution, nor is it failsafe.
Plasma is coming soon to the Ethereum blockchain and it carries a lot of promise. As discussed in an earlier article[1], the upcoming Minimum Viable Plasma[2] (Plasma MVP) will be capable of processing up to 1,000 transactions per second, which will enable a whole host of new applications to call Ethereum home.
As Ethereum continues to scale and more organizations and users bring their business to the blockchain, security is increasingly important. If Plasma allows so many transactions per second, that's all the more funds that can be lost if something goes wrong.
One Ethereum developer, Jieyi Long, recently posted an idea[3] to improve Plasma MVP to the Ethereum Foundation's official research forum, through which he brings to light a potentially major vulnerability of MVP.
As some readers might know, Plasma MVP is just one iteration of plasma. In this version of the concept, a Plasma EDCC creates a side chain wherein users can execute fast and cheap transactions facilitated by a so-called "Plasma operator." The Plasma operator is a third party who verifies each transaction on the Plasma chain. The operator periodically sends updated transaction information to the main chain, which is then mined into blocks and finalized.
To help ensure the plasma operator is honest, MVP specifies a system for users to challenge the operator if they attempt to leave the chain with fraudulent transaction claims. However, this requires
