Solving the Blockchain Trilemma
When first reading this on Aleph Zero’s website, I found it to be quite ridiculous and at first
discounted it as a technicality or some shameless promotion but having looked at the
technology and reasoning, it makes a lot of sense.
The blockchain trilemma refers to a fundamental issue with all blockchains - which is the inability
to be scalable, secure and decentralised. Current blockchains can only achieve 2 of these at
the expense of the third. This is due to fundamental factors around how decentralisation and
security by nature require more time and execution power (slowing tx/s to verify and increasing
cost), vice versa, high throughput and low cost can be achieved, but with much fewer nodes
meaning less decentralisation and being less resistant to corruption.
Hence the trilemma! Modern blockchain have struggled with this and hence why we haven’t
seen the undisputed Layer 1 blockchain.
ETH - Decentralised and Secure but not Scalable
SOL - Highly Scalable but less Decentralised and Secure
Aleph Zero are claiming to have solved the blockchain trilemma, at least in theory and are
moving through the processes of delivering this from an engineering standpoint. So how does it
stand up exactly?
Scalability - Able to deliver a current max throughput of
100,000 transactions per second with instant finality, as well
as close to zero cost in transaction fees. Having been tested
in a lab environment as well as other mechanisms on the
testnets. This is more than competing blockchains on a
number of fronts.
Decentralised - the DAG protocol allows for multiple blocks
to be mined at once (helping scale), but by implementing a
random and rotating committee of validators this allows for a
decentralised network of validators
Secure - the consensus model AlephBFT is one of the core
innovations which has theoretically solved the blockchain
trilemma. The details and technological relationship is
complex but its a new and innovative way of validating
transactions quickly, securely and in a decentralised manner
by pairing already founded technologies.
Also it was peer reviewed and validated.
Now why does any of this matter, and isn’t it all one of the same - actually I think it is very
important. It is the same reason why we see over $5bn locked in Ethereum Layer 2 protocols
(Arbitrum, zksync etc). Crypto needs a solution to the blockchain trilemma to eventually enable
global adoption - so seeing the work from Aleph Zero is exciting.
Aleph Zero hasn't been screaming from the rooftops about this, and probably because it is
understood that much is needed to be done to fully implement this in practice. Other
blockchains, particularly Ethereum, have proven themselves resistant to years of real world
testing and can be considered battle proofed. However, the fact this isn’t being used as some
cheap marketing ploy actually makes me more bullish and potentially is being nurtured into
existence rather than forced.