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Vitalik Buterin, one of Ethereum’s co-founders, is credited with this trilemma, and this (AFAICT) is where he first posted about it: The trilemma claims th

Vitalik Buterin, one of Ethereum’s co-founders, is credited with this trilemma, and this (AFAICT) is where he first posted about it: The trilemma claims that blockchain systems can only at most have two of the following three properties: * Decentralization (defined as the system being able to run in a scenario where each participant only has access to O(c) resources, i.e. a regular laptop or small VPS) * Scalability (defined as being able to process O(n) > O(c) transactions) * Security (defined as being secure against attackers with up to O(n) resources) In the rest of this document, we'll continue using c to refer to the size of computational resources (including computation, bandwidth and storage) available to each node, and n to refer to the size of the ecosystem in some abstract sense; we assume that transaction load, state size, and the market cap of a cryptocurrency are all proportional to n. The key challenge of scalability is finding a way to achieve all three at the base layer. * https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2017/12/31/sharding_faq.html#this-sounds-like-theres-some-kind-of-scalability-trilemma-at-play.-what-is-this-trilemma-and-can-we-break-through-it https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2017/12/31/sharding_faq.htm...

wslh 2y ago
The CAP theorem is a precursor of that, even if they are different [1][2][3] and Micali from Algorand claims they solved it (it is included in the original article). [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/kaspa/comments/18ieda0/there_is_a_folklore_that_the_blockchain_trilemma/ https://www.reddit.com/r/kaspa/comments/18ieda0/there_is_a_f... [2] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3615871 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3615871 [3] https://x.com/0xmert_/status/1748768344080023805?s=46 https://x.com/0xmert_/status/1748768344080023805?s=46
- treyd 2y ago
  I feel like there's a way to directly derive the blockchain trilemma from the CAP theorem (or probably the more formal PACELC). Reasoning through it in my head makes sense so I've been saying that it's a corollary to CAP but I haven't actually seen it written out formally.
  - josh2600 2y ago
    Cap is different because cap is about network planning constraints and doesn’t take into account things like security per se. I think parts of Vitalik’s points are kinda moot and break down when you examine them through the lens of “any sufficiently complicated system can and will break.” In the case of bitcoin, the breaks are few now because it is basically static. I’m sure there’s some bugs in that codebase though… (and they’re worth a very pretty penny if you can find them!!).
  - barnacs 2y ago
    I think it all comes down to relativity and the speed of light. There is no single, universal, true ordered state (ledger/db). Participants need a conflict resolution mechanism to figure out whose truth is correct. One must rely on a localized consinstent state of some authority (leader/consensus).
    - api 2y ago
      The fact that every human society ends up with some kind of centralized oligarchy is probably also due to this effect. Something has to resolve disputes about the state of the system. A solution that somehow goes around these limitations could have implications beyond computing. It could enable “headless” large scale cooperation. This would be a fundamental innovation in the evolution of intelligence generally. Proof of work is the only one we have that kind of works and it’s massively expensive. You could argue that it’s just a way to make economically irrational or short sighted collusion prohibitively expensive rather than a true solution and might only work in a domain like a currency where there is a direct mapping to cost.
      - barnacs 2y ago
        Proof of work essentially allows for a periodic leader election, where the leader has sufficient time to propagate its state update along with a verifiable proof of authority in a permissionless decentralized system. Decentralized cooperation in society likely wouldn't be permissionless, in most cases you would probably want to assign some voting power per human/citizen/share certificate/whatever. I'm also not sure if decentralized, verifiable randomness is easier to achieve outside of computer networks (for example, source some verifiable randomness from the universe based on a pre-defined algorithm).
- josh2600 2y ago
  Algorand’s solution as originally stated is predicated on a non-colluding majority. At IACR when this algorithm was proposed, Silvio famously said as a counterpoint to the very apt criticisms that a colluding majority could defraud the protocol “my proof is that society exists!” In the end I believe Algorand changed their algorithms to a more centralized approach for the sake of performance as fully distributed validation did not perform adequately. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
  - sibeliuss 2y ago
    Network keeps getting faster, and more decentralized: https://algorandtechnologies.com/technology/solving-the-blockchain-trilemma https://algorandtechnologies.com/technology/solving-the-bloc... > Currently, Algorand blocks are produced in less than 3 seconds with instant finality. The network can process 10,000 transactions per second, and at a cost of a fraction of a cent per transaction.
  - Mistletoe 2y ago
    https://www.reddit.com/r/AlgorandOfficial/comments/u0n0mt/is_algorand_truly_centralized/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AlgorandOfficial/comments/u0n0mt/is... Unless this has changed since two years ago, the relay nodes are quite centralized.
  - wslh 2y ago
    Yes, full relay nodes were few and very centralized historically. Source: we have been working with Algorand since the beginning. BTW: we publish updated information about the protocol that you cannot find in the original papers [1]. [1] https://www.coinfabrik.com/blog/uncovering-a-trove-of-algorand-research-and-tools/ https://www.coinfabrik.com/blog/uncovering-a-trove-of-algora...

wslh 2y ago

The CAP theorem is a precursor of that, even if they are different [1][2][3] and Micali from Algorand claims they solved it (it is included in the original article). [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/kaspa/comments/18ieda0/there_is_a_folklore_that_the_blockchain_trilemma/ https://www.reddit.com/r/kaspa/comments/18ieda0/there_is_a_f... [2] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3615871 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3615871 [3] https://x.com/0xmert_/status/1748768344080023805?s=46 https://x.com/0xmert_/status/1748768344080023805?s=46

treyd 2y ago
I feel like there's a way to directly derive the blockchain trilemma from the CAP theorem (or probably the more formal PACELC). Reasoning through it in my head makes sense so I've been saying that it's a corollary to CAP but I haven't actually seen it written out formally.
- josh2600 2y ago
  Cap is different because cap is about network planning constraints and doesn’t take into account things like security per se. I think parts of Vitalik’s points are kinda moot and break down when you examine them through the lens of “any sufficiently complicated system can and will break.” In the case of bitcoin, the breaks are few now because it is basically static. I’m sure there’s some bugs in that codebase though… (and they’re worth a very pretty penny if you can find them!!).
- barnacs 2y ago
  I think it all comes down to relativity and the speed of light. There is no single, universal, true ordered state (ledger/db). Participants need a conflict resolution mechanism to figure out whose truth is correct. One must rely on a localized consinstent state of some authority (leader/consensus).
  - api 2y ago
    The fact that every human society ends up with some kind of centralized oligarchy is probably also due to this effect. Something has to resolve disputes about the state of the system. A solution that somehow goes around these limitations could have implications beyond computing. It could enable “headless” large scale cooperation. This would be a fundamental innovation in the evolution of intelligence generally. Proof of work is the only one we have that kind of works and it’s massively expensive. You could argue that it’s just a way to make economically irrational or short sighted collusion prohibitively expensive rather than a true solution and might only work in a domain like a currency where there is a direct mapping to cost.
    - barnacs 2y ago
      Proof of work essentially allows for a periodic leader election, where the leader has sufficient time to propagate its state update along with a verifiable proof of authority in a permissionless decentralized system. Decentralized cooperation in society likely wouldn't be permissionless, in most cases you would probably want to assign some voting power per human/citizen/share certificate/whatever. I'm also not sure if decentralized, verifiable randomness is easier to achieve outside of computer networks (for example, source some verifiable randomness from the universe based on a pre-defined algorithm).
josh2600 2y ago
Algorand’s solution as originally stated is predicated on a non-colluding majority. At IACR when this algorithm was proposed, Silvio famously said as a counterpoint to the very apt criticisms that a colluding majority could defraud the protocol “my proof is that society exists!” In the end I believe Algorand changed their algorithms to a more centralized approach for the sake of performance as fully distributed validation did not perform adequately. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
- sibeliuss 2y ago
  Network keeps getting faster, and more decentralized: https://algorandtechnologies.com/technology/solving-the-blockchain-trilemma https://algorandtechnologies.com/technology/solving-the-bloc... > Currently, Algorand blocks are produced in less than 3 seconds with instant finality. The network can process 10,000 transactions per second, and at a cost of a fraction of a cent per transaction.
- Mistletoe 2y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/AlgorandOfficial/comments/u0n0mt/is_algorand_truly_centralized/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AlgorandOfficial/comments/u0n0mt/is... Unless this has changed since two years ago, the relay nodes are quite centralized.
- wslh 2y ago
  Yes, full relay nodes were few and very centralized historically. Source: we have been working with Algorand since the beginning. BTW: we publish updated information about the protocol that you cannot find in the original papers [1]. [1] https://www.coinfabrik.com/blog/uncovering-a-trove-of-algorand-research-and-tools/ https://www.coinfabrik.com/blog/uncovering-a-trove-of-algora...