The great thing about all this smart-contract stuff is that we're not limited to simplistic abstractions anymore. Rather than a linear approach, I think what's

The great thing about all this smart-contract stuff is that we're not limited to simplistic abstractions anymore. Rather than a linear approach, I think what's going to succeed is a "tree" of networks, with weaker ones committing hashes at regular checkpoints to stronger, more expensive chains (sort of a sparse Merkle tree[1]). This is already the approach taken by scaling solutions such as Thunderella[2] or sharding proposals[3]. This allows a more organic hierarchy between secure and fast networks. e.g.: Imagine a fast but slightly centralized Twitter chain (only 21 validators let's say), committing hashes of every day of tweets to a decentralized public blockchain. I'm not 100% sure whether that tweet posted by my friend 5 minutes ago is legitimate, but I don't need to be 100% certain to answer them and carry on the casual conservation. I can verify though, that the Trump tweet bordering on declaration of war posted 24h ago is indeed real, because the hash of the whole day of tweets was committed to a strong blockchain, and the author of the tweet didn't post any subsequent objection to it. I can proceed to hide in my bunker, confident in my choice. [1]: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Protocol_documentation#Merkle_Trees https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Protocol_documentation#Merkle_Tre... [2]: https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/913.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/913.pdf [3]: https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Sharding-FAQs#what-might-a-basic-design-of-a-sharded-blockchain-look-like https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Sharding-FAQs#what-mig...