The Blockchain Trilemma - blocktrain.info

Theoretically an ideal blockchain, is built on three foundational pillars i.e Decentralization, Security and Scalability but according to Vitalik Buterin (Founder of Ethereum) in the current structure of Blockchain, if a network has to grow it cannot do so without compromising any one of the pillars and this is called as Blockchain Trilemma.

It’s more a like a general problem for the Blockchain developers to build a network in which all the three pillars compliment each other making it an ideal blockchain. Let’s understand the terms

Decentralization

The primary reason for the existence of Blockchain technology is the need of a system that is not controlled by a single authority and eliminates the 3rd party dependency.

The Bitcoin Network is decentralized but it’s not scalable because of the block size, block time and power consumption.

Security

Security & Decentralization are the two sides of the same coin. If a blockchain is completely decentralized it means it’s fundamentally secured.

Security means the data & transactions are immutable and the network is safe from attacks.

Scalability

Scalability of a blockchain is it’s capability to perform ideally and handle the growing demand. For example, Ethereum gas fee rises exponentially when transactions are high. While Solana is highly scalable but it’s considered more centralized which is evident by the fact that it went down 4 times in a month.

The Trade Offs

If a blockchain network is completely decentralized, it compliments security while compromises on scalability.
If a network is scalable then it’s more likely to be centralized to give more throughputs which indeed makes it less secure. And security should never be compromised for anything.

Solution?

In the past 2–3 years developers have approached the problem in many ways, like implementing Blockchain Layers (Layer 1, 2,3), Consensus Mechanism (Proof of Stake, Proof of History), Sharding or Beacon Chain

We keep these topics for our next posts. Hope it was worth your time.

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