Understanding Turing Completeness in Blockchain Systems

By akohad Jan23,2024

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What Is A Turing Complete Blockchain?

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

The concept of Turing completeness is often discussed when analyzing the capabilities of blockchain platforms. But what does it actually mean for a system to be Turing complete? What are advanteges and downsides when a blockchain is Turing complete?

This article breaks down Turing completeness using simple terms and real-life examples.

Alan Turing in 1936, when he was 24 years old (Wikipedia)

The concept is named after the British mathematician Alan Turing. In 1936, Turing published a paper titled “On Computable Numbers” that essentially laid the foundations of computer science.

In his paper, Turing described a hypothetical universal machine that could compute any computable sequence. This universal machine was the blueprint for what we now know as the general purpose computer untill today.

Turing also established the limits of what algorithms a computer can run. Any system capable of replicating the universal machine is considered Turing complete.

A physical Turing machine model (Wikipedia)

The concept of Turing completeness is derived from the theoretical Turing machine. A system is considerd Turing complete if it can perform these key tasks.

  • Sequence — Execute a series of computational steps in the order they are provided.
  • Conditionals — Execute different computational paths conditionally based on certain criteria.
  • Iteration — Repeat computational sub-processes over and over.
  • Store Data — Store intermediate results for later use in memory.

Any system that meets the above criteria can theoretically perform the same computations as a general purpose computer. It may take longer and require more memory but the final result will be…

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By akohad

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