The Blockchain Trilemma

In this episode we cover a simple and straightforward way of understanding Bitcoin, called the Blockchain Trilemma. Thomas Sowell once said, "There are no solutions only tradeoffs" and this is especially true for Blockchains. In this trilemma, there can only be two of these three factors: Decentralization, Security, Scalability Each of these are a gradient between extremes. Decentralization in blockchains relate to how much a project aligns with each of these factors: -permissionless, anyone can be a node on the network, anyone can buy mining hardware and help to secure the network and record transactions. -Distributed -Censorship Resistant -Democratized Consensus -Redundancy Scalability in blockchains relate to: -transaction speeds -network throughput -ability to bootstrap the network -Cost of Participation -Offchain capabilitiies Security in blockchains relate to: -Fault Tolerance -Attack Resistance -Incentives to secure the network -Evolving code base -Secure by default (from a users perspective) Link to our slides from our presentation on the Trilemma at the University of Arizona: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ApxOUJmv68ndaV3YxQ9yf5QYyPm5e4b4/view