Blockchain Trilemma - Crypto Academy / S5W2 - Homework post for nane15
No one can be denied the tremendous impact Blockchain Technology has gotten so far in the current day and time. The rate at which currency is being exchanged is now faster as compared to before, with very high security of the currency and the transaction is very transparent to everyone has made it very cool to be used by anyone.
Knowing the fact that blockchain is a decentralized system gives the users more confidence, and transactions can be done both online and offline, making it cooler to use compared to the conventional centralized system. Blockchain is widely used by the digital currency called cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, ethereum, lite coin, and its likes.
Time has revealed that there is nothing in this world that is 100% perfect, Blockchain is included. The blockchain system has its challenges that it has been facing for a long time now, though innovations have come into place but the challenges still linger. The challenges occur in how it stores, process and execute data. If these problems are solved accurately, the massive will all be using the blockchain system frequently.
These three issues that the blockchain finds hard to solve simultaneously are Scalability, Decentralization, and Security. These three issues combined are called the Blockchain trilemma. The concept was first brought in by Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum. It simply means how hard a network is to solve these three issues simultaneously.
Different innovations have been brought into the system, especially when it comes to Bitcoin and the Ethereum to these issues simultaneously but to no avail. For example, Bitcoin uses the Proof of Work consensus mechanism that tried to solve the issue of Decentralization and security but failed to solve the issue of scalability. We know that the proof of work deals with solving a complex mathematical solution, this makes it very slow for a block to be validated.
Even when you try to use the Proof of Stake consensus mechanism, which tries to solve the issue of scalability but does not solve it completely. Because it only provides access to some stakes which stake very high amount of assets for them to be known as validator.
Though some New blockchain has tried to solve these problems to some extent but not completely, from the outside, they seem to solve it but if you take a closer look you will still find some areas where they are lagging. These networks includes the likes of Solana Network, Cardano Network, and many other networks.
Trilema is defined by a situation in which you have to choose
between three options available, unlike a dilemma in which you have to choose between two options available. The blockchain Trilema which I have said before includes Security, Decentralization, and scalability. Which the blockchain is finding it very difficult to solve all three of them at the same time.
With more innovations coming up, developers are really trying hard to solve, and I said that some new blockchains has tried to some extent to provide a solution to it. Though for now, no blockchain has solved it .
But everything has a solution, so I believe that with time blockchain Trilema will be a history of the past, because there is room of improvement and developers are working night and day to provide an answer to it, that can solve the three problems simultaneously. You know that blockchain is still to the system, it just came out 2009, so to some extent it is a child and it will grow to become better. There is only a phase in the formulation the blockchain.
Decentralization, Scalability,, and Blockchain Security
Decentralization
The original intention of creating a blockchain is to create a decentralized system, where there is no interference. Initially the use of centralized system, gave the central authority more power than the actual owner. Decentralization made it possible for the owner to have full control of his assets and it removed the need for a third party from your transactions.
A decentralized system brought total transparency to every transaction and provided adequate security that made it better than the centralized system. In a Decentralized system, there is no limit to the number of transactions you want to carry out and there is no form of interference between your money and you.
The decentralized system works effectively on the blockchain, the blockchain serves as a public ledger which have different nodes that are connected to it. The nodes which are interconnected serves as points of reference to one another.
The blockchain uses different consensus mechanisms to validate a block, which includes the proof of work, proof of stake, and so many others. Consensus mechanism The speed of transaction varies, is directly proportional to the number of nodes available. Which means that if more transactions are to be executed, it will take a longer time before the transactions can be confirmed.
Scalability:
Scalability simply means how many transactions can be confirmed at a particular period. It has a lot to do with the speed of a transaction, how long does it take a transaction to be verified. If a network is very scalable then, it can confirm many transactions in a split of a second. Some factors affect how scalable a network is at a particular time, such factors include the number of nodes that need to be confirmed and the consensus mechanism that is being used.
We can not underestimate the importance of scalability in a network, because people are are always in a hurry and most people does not have patience to wait for their transaction to be confirmed. For example, it takes on average, it takes the bitcoin up to 10 minutes to verify one block using the proof of work consensus mechanism while using the proof of stake consensus mechanism takes over 1000 transactions per second.
The EOS blockchain, solved the scalability problem to some extent, as it increased the number of transactions per second to 4,000 transaction per second. And other blockchains are doing more better in terms of transactions per second. The likes of Solana and polkadot will be doing better, because all these are new blockchain recently built.
Security
The world is currently filled with thieves both physically and on the internet, it is of high importance that the system is protected from all forms of thieves. In the crypto world, some people have devoted their time to stealing other people's assets. It is high importance that people’s assets are protected at all course.
Many attacks are targeted at the blockchain network. And if the security is not tight, hackers can loot people’s money. Without proper security, decentralization and scalability would not exit. The security of the blockchain is done by the use of code that the developer inputted into the system.
And there is a current improvement in security because developers are working to make sure that the security gets stronger as the day goes by. Another factor that also affects security is the consensus mechanism that is being used at the moment. Some consensus mechanism are stronger than others. The security of the blockchain technology is very , it has been proven that 51% validation from other nodes, is what is needed before a hacker can successfully hack the blockchain technology, which is impossible.
There are two layers in solving the blockchain challenges, layer one and layer two
Layer one
Knowing the fact that bitcoin is the father of all cryptocurrencies, there are need to make improvement of the consensus mechanism that is being used by the blockchain.
If more work is being on the consensus mechanism. Then their will a great change. We can see that the first set of cryptocurrencies used the proof of work consensus mechanism and they encountered the issue of scalability. If better improvement is being done on the proof of work, maybe if it can be changed to proof of stake, because the POS solved the issue of scalability.
If the blockchain is being divided into fragments, it can help solve the issues of blockchain trilema, each fregment should have a particular problem it is tackling at a particular moment, this is another way, we can solve the blockchain trilemma.
Layer two
The second layer provides blockchain technology with external support tools which help the blockchain to do all the thing it can not do on a normal day.
The work on the main blockchain will be reduced drastically if the external tools are working well. They will help to reduce the work load for the parent blockchain.
Lighting network has really helped in the solving of the scalability challenge, couple with other external attatchment that is placed side by side with the blockchain.
In conclusion, as I have said before the blockchain trilema is only a phase in the full development of blockchain technology. With time scalability , decentralization and security will be solved by one blockchain effectively. The likes of Solana, Polkadot, and Cardano have given a tip of the iceberg. They have shown that it can solved provided that there is room for improvement which already exist now.
Cc: @nane15
@steemcurator02