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Author: Outprog @ Contributor of PermaDAO
Reviewer: Xiaosong HU @ Contributor of PermaDAO
The blockchain trilemma has profound implications for the widespread adoption of blockchain technology. It requires a delicate balance between decentralisation, security, and scalability, which means that trade-offs must be made in these three aspects when pursuing large-scale applications. The challenges posed by the trilemma have spurred continuous technological innovations, as people have been striving to find solutions to promote the development and adoption of blockchain technology. Below is outprog’s speech at Arweave Day in Asia 2023:
I’m happy to have the chance to talk to you about the Permaweb and SCP. These two ideas may still be unknown to many, but they’re quite important for future development of blockchain apps. Let’s take a quick dive into these ideas and understand how they impact the blockchain evolution.
Part 1: What’s the blockchain Trilemma?
Before we talk more about the Permaweb and SCP, lets first take a look at what the trilemma is within the blockchain. The idea goes around three core requirements: decentralisation, scalability, and security. We all know there is a fragile balance with these three requirements. If A blockchain is highly decentralized, it most likely sacrifices scalability. Sadly going for high scalability often poses security problems.
This is what is known as the blockchain trilemma. We have seen over the past years blockchain projects struggle to balance these three aspects. So, can we improve it? Maybe. Lets get into how we have found a solution to this.
Part 2: Can SCP help?
First off, what is SCP? SCP is simple, it’s A storage-based consensus paradigm with it’s core idea being that as long as storage is immutable and transactions are traceable then computing apps will result in the same end goal. This means that we’ll be able to achieve consensus without the need of distributed computing. Pretty powerful concept if you ask me.
Lets take everPay as an example. We may think of it as a centralised payment gateway, kind of like PayPal. There is A big difference though. everPay transaction records are permanently stored on Arweave. This means anyone that wishes to compute and verify everPay’s state can do so, a unique feature with a high level of trustlessness, something that PayPal doesn’t have.
Part 3: Modularity
The permaweb is an entirely new web architecture composed of three core components:
Application layers, service layers and storage layers.
Unlike web2 architecture, the Permaweb storage layer uses blockchain tech, to be more specific, it uses Arweave. What does Arweave bring to the Permaweb? Immutability and traceability.
- Security is ensured with the underlying storage layer.
- Decentralisation is achieved with standardised protocols and an open service layer.
- Service providers can horizontally scale an infinite number of standardized services, apps can flexibly utilise these standard services, solving scalability issues.
Part 4: Permaweb
The Permaweb service layer includes four protocols: Gateways, Bundling, Sequencing and Indexing.
What do they do? Gateways provide static file services like Arweave.net or ArSeeding light nodes. Bundling offers data bundling upload services like Arseeding light nodes or bundlr. Sequencing provides serialisation for smart contracts or financial services like warp or everPay. Indexing offers data indexing for Arweave like The GraphQL or KNN3.
Devs can use any of these services to build Permaweb apps. Service providers can scale an infinite number of standardised services which effectively solves scalability problems.
Combining the SCP theory with modularity allows the permaweb to provide a real-world solution to this “blockchain trilemma” I talked about.
Part 5: Applying SCP to various fields.
This SCP theory isn’t only limited to the Permaweb. We can integrate this theory with the microservices concept. This means that the storage layer can be more open, even use public chains like Ethereum as asset service layers. Modular thinking will bring more possibilities for future blockchain apps.
Part 6: Outlook with a conclusion
All existing blockchains still struggle to achieve true scalability, largely due to the above trilemma I spoke of. I believe that SCP and the Permaweb can create a new path, this path is based on a solid theoretIcal foundation validated through engineering practices. I look forward to the development of the Permaweb as well as the widespread of the SCP app theory in the blockchain world.
A big thank you for everyone that joined us today. Thank you for your attention.
