What Is the Blockchain Trilemma?
Blockchains can only handle a limited number of transactions per second. The Bitcoin network, for example, can process around seven transactions per second. If blockchain technology is to be adopted globally, it should be able to handle much more data, and at faster speeds, so that more people can use the network without it becoming too slow or expensive to use. However, the fundamental design of many decentralized networks means that increasing scalability tends to weaken decentralization or security. This is what’s known as the blockchain trilemma. Developers looking to solve this problem are experimenting with different consensus mechanisms and scalability solutions, such as sharding, sidechains, and state channels.
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