Every Blockchain has a trilemma. To develop its base layer,it must prioritize security, decentralisation or scalability. It is not possible to choose all 3, but only 2 of the 3.
The #Bitcoin Blockchain base layer prioritised security and decentralisation.🧡⚡️🫡
The blockchain trilemma is a concept that suggests that it is impossible for a blockchain network to simultaneously achieve three key properties: security, decentralization, and scalability. Instead, a blockchain can only prioritize two of these properties at the base layer, with trade-offs between them.
The Bitcoin blockchain, for example, prioritizes security and decentralization over scalability. This means that Bitcoin’s base layer focuses on ensuring the integrity and trustworthiness of transactions, as well as maintaining a decentralized network where no single entity controls a majority of the mining power. As a result, Bitcoin’s scalability is limited, with a maximum throughput of around seven transactions per second.
Other blockchains may prioritize different combinations of these properties. For instance, Ethereum prioritizes smart contract functionality and decentralized applications (dApps) over pure decentralization, which allows for greater scalability but potentially reduces security compared to Bitcoin. Other blockchains like Solana prioritize scalability and performance, sacrificing some degree of decentralization in order to achieve higher transaction speeds.
Trilemma explanation for Bitcoin blockchain
