What Is The Blockchain Trilemma?
For mainstream companies, scalability is pretty much the same, as it involves introducing a solution people value, and as adoption skyrockets, the concept of scalability makes it economical, driving more demand.
In contrast, blockchain technology declines in speed as the volume of activity grows. It also becomes much more expensive. For example, at launch, Ethereum could comfortably handle many transactions at an average of 15TPS. Now it has become slower and more expensive due to the increasing number of transactions.
Various blockchain platforms have been trying to fix the issues in recent years. However, all either make the network more susceptible to attacks or compromise the ultimate decentralization feature of cryptocurrency. This persistent imbalance is known as Blockchain Trilemma. And it’s one of the hindrances holding mass crypto adoption. This guide will fill you in on what it means and how different blockchains are fixing the issue.
What Is Blockchain Trilemma
Blockchain Trilemma is a crypto lingo coined by Ethereum Founder Vitalik, meaning all the three features of blockchain — decentralization, security, and scalability can’t be available on a full scale.
Buterin proposed this term in 2014 when he was building Ethereum, which faces the same issue as the Bitcoin network. Bitcoin majorly suffers scalability issues with efficient decentralization and security.
Usually, increasing scalability means more streamlining, which in turn means greater security risk. So the blockchain trilemma is about decentralization, scalability, and security and balancing two of the three in a single blockchain.
Core Features of Blockchain Trilemma
To better understand the concept of the blockchain Trilemma, let’s give a short analysis of each feature and its importance.
- Decentralization
Instead of having financial bodies and other forms of intermediaries in your transaction, blockchains give absolute control of the network equally to all users. Blockchain decentralization plays a major role in the current wide adoption of cryptocurrency. It essentially allows users to have control over their finances.
- Security
Similar to any technology, security is one of the most important features of Blockchain networks. Good blockchain security means that the network is protected from malicious activities or potential attacks. Most blockchain prioritizes this over other features, including decentralization and scalability.
- Scalability.
The term scalability means Blockchains should handle a large number of transactions and projects without compromising speed and efficiency. Unfortunately, most blockchain networks suffer scalability in a bid to have a secure and fully decentralized platform.
However, several developers are coming up with innovative ways to have all these features in a blockchain. Let’s explore the companies and how they are solving the issues.
How Do Blockchains Solve Blockchain Trilemma?
As mentioned earlier, offering all the core three — decentralization, scalability, and security means that one or two features will be available but on a reduced scale, compromising the effectiveness of that feature.
As a result, several platforms, including Ethereum 2.0, Solana, Cardano, Polkadot etc., remain committed to providing a decent balance to these features. Many possible and experimented solutions to the Trilemma include layer 2, sharding/rollups, side chains, and more.
Ethereum 2.0 aims to solve the problem with sharding and side chains. These solutions will come in scheduled rollups until the new PoS network is fully active. Vitalik Buterin envisioned a concept where Proof of Stake and sharding would work to support a huge workload.
Cardano is also solving the crypto Trilemma with ZK rollups for scaling solutions and its Ouroboros proof-of-stake protocol.
Polkadot has also come a long way in solving the problem with parachains to improve security, scalability, and lower transaction fees.
Wrapping Up
While blockchain technology offers innovative solutions penetrating into different sectors ranging from crypto payment, and health to art, it still lacks mass adoption due to scalability issues.
Fortunately, many existing and erupting blockchains are going all in to provide the three big solutions — security, scalability, and decentralization on a full scale.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the writer and not of this platform.
