Founder of Cyber ​​Capital: What is the future of blockchain expansion?

Author: Justin Bons, founder of Cyber ​​Capital, Source: Author’s Twitter @Justin_Bons; Compiled by: Songxue, Golden Finance

There are three ways to expand the blockchain:

1.“L2 Scaling” (BTC, ETH, TIA)

2. Parallelization (SOL, APT, SUI)

3. Sharding (TON, NEAR, EGLD)

Sharding is the future, and parallelization is inevitable. There is no doubt in my mind that this is where it all ends:

Since "L2 scaling" makes the user experience worse, the token economics are also worse because it can't keep fees under L1 scope, and fragmentation ruins the user experience. The overall scaling approach (parallelization and sharding) does not fall victim to these fatal flaws because it remains a coherent whole.

Parallelization is inevitable because it would be foolish not to multithread all client software. All modern CPUs have multiple cores, yet blockchains like Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) still only process transactions sequentially. This results in most validator hardware being used inefficiently and is a huge waste!

The same is true for shard chains, as each shard should be parallelized. to maximize the capacity of a single shard. Sharding evolved from logic in parallelization. This beats previous scalability records by scaling concurrency from multiple cores to now distributing workloads across multiple machines.

Sharded systems are now capable of 100k+ TPS, with theoretical limits approaching 1M+ TPS, while keeping node requirements relatively low. This is how sharding solves the blockchain trilemma.

Traditional blockchain designs are faced with the three difficulties of blockchain. Because at a certain point, node requirements become so high that they threaten decentralization. Since all nodes must validate all global state changes, it is fundamentally non-scalable. Sharding technology solves this problem.

Unlike traditional designs, shard chains expand with use. And non-sharded chains always eventually hit a bottleneck. When a shard chain gains adoption through more usage and validators, it can start a new shard. In other words, sharding makes scaling linear!

Other blockchains scale quadratically, meaning that as the network grows, node requirements become higher and higher until physical limits are reached. Because we can only process so much within a single silicon chip compared to what we can achieve with computer networks.

There is a lot of misinformation out there about sharding, I will refute two of them:

"You can attack a single shard", shards share L1 due to random arrangement of validators Security;

"No composability", cross-shard communication is built-in, ensuring seamless interoperability.

The irony of these criticisms is that "L2 expansion" has the same flaw: "you can attack a single L2." This is true, considering that admin keys and distributed sequencers require their own consensus.

Fortunately, the span from parallelization to sharding is shorter than with modular blockchains. And, even parallelization will likely provide enough capacity for many years to come compared to modular blockchains. That's why I can support chains in the last two categories with peace of mind.

Monolithic expansion still allows for modular expansion using L2, letting the free market choose the best solution, while modular expansion is more akin to central planning of L1 forcing modular expansion, by letting the market choose another L1/L2.

We have to draw a clear line when it comes to modular blockchains. I firmly believe that modular expansion is a technical dead end. Even worse, it will set us back because people mistakenly associate modular design with cryptocurrency. Slow, expensive and difficult – that’s what modularity is.

While the monolithic design is fast, low-cost, easy to use and understand, if the community provides enough resistance, ETH may still return to sharding, which may lead to a block size debate-style fork because of conservative Pai tried to hold on to his power.

There is no doubt that the entrenched power within ETH will not be easily overcome. As L2 funds, venture capital and tokens provide strong incentives for ETH’s L1 expansion. Therefore, since ETH also lacks good on-chain governance, voting with your feet may be easier to achieve.

I am not ETH’s enemy, but its friend. If I'm right, then ETH's biggest enemies are entrenched in its leadership, and so is BTC. Power corrupts absolutely and I will not let this thread take away from governance.

Regardless of the notion of tribalism, in the final analysis, there is a correct path to development, which is the monolithic expansion that I have already explained. Proponents of modular scaling often point to the blockchain trilemma as a reason for their support.

I deeply respect this idea because there are many smart and kind people who support "L2 expansion". However, this belief is based on false assumptions. As more and more evidence emerges about feasible L1 extensions, contrary to the modularity argument, this has become a fact that cannot be ignored.

Alternative chains surpass Bitcoin and Ethereum in several usage metrics. The truth is out there for anyone who wants to know. Single expansion is the future, giving everyone the power to directly use the blockchain, bringing us back to the vision of Satoshi Nakamoto.