vs. Bitcoin, Etherium, Monero, and all other PoW, singleton blockchains

Multiple Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Monero transactions are included into blocks which are created by miners and approved by the entire network. The blocks are added to the single blockchain (singleton blockchain), but the blockchain can be reorganized (forked) any time if another miner with more computing power managed to mine a longer chain. Therefore, full transaction approval requires several blocks to be added on top of the block containing the transaction, which makes Bitcoin (and other PoW and singleton blockchains) transactions useless in a retail environment without additional layers of service.

In Lyra, each individual transaction is a block, and each block is authorized instantly by the network. Since only the account owner can generate a new block in the block lattice, transaction processing is fully parallel and asynchronous, so the individual account does not depend on the rest of the network. Therefore, Lyra transactions can be used in real time retail environment without the need for additional layers.

For the same reasons described above, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Monero scalability (amount of transactions the network can process) is limited to just a few tps (transactions per second), while Lyra can compete with payment card processing networks and achieve thousands of tps.

Funds transfer in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Monero requires access to entire blockchain as new transaction is compiled using outputs located in different blocks located all over the blockchain. Therefore, Bitcoin, Etherium, and Monero clients must have access to the entire blockchain database, located either locally or remotely (“web wallet”).

Lyra client does not need access to the entire block lattice as every account stores transactions on its own blockchain. It does not even require access to the entire account blockchain as recent blocks always contain full information about account balance, which is sufficient for creating a new transaction in most cases. Thus, Lyra clients neither require local storage nor they depend on a particular server, so they can be hosted on mobile devices, smart cards, and IoT microdevices.

Most cryptocurrencies have the same “locked funds” problem which prevents spending of unsettled funds. Typical crypto transaction consists of two records that split a single payer’s wallet balance into two outputs: 1. the payment that goes to the payee and 2. the change that goes back to the payer’s wallet. As a result, the entire wallet balance remains locked until the transaction is settled (received N confirmations). It’s important to note that payment card networks do not have this problem in most cases (with exception for pre-authorization which will be discussed separately) because they have centralized servers with up-to-date information about all transactions, both settled and unsettled. Since every Lyra transaction is written into its own block, and every transaction block is individually and instantly authorized by the network, there is no need to lock any balance to prevent double spending. Once a transaction block is signed by the authorizer nodes it becomes the part of an immutable account blockchain which cannot be modified. The account balance is spendable right after authorization response (for any transaction) is received from the network.

And finally, while Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Monero rely on PoW, Lyra uses DPOS consensus which means lower network power consumption and operating expenses.