Hi friends,
Welcome once again to my blog. Today I welcome us all to season number 5 and week number 2 of the steemit crypto academy. The season has really started in earnest and I am so happy to be part of this season. Today, after attending the lecture delivered by our very noble professor in the person of @nane15 on the topic Blockchain Trilemma, I will be attempting the assignment task given by the professor. Feel free and enjoy yourself as you read through my blog.

The concept of Blockchain Trilemma was first coined by one of the Ethereum investor that goes with the nomenclature Vitalik Buterin. Trilemma as the name implies is to make choice within three valuable alternatives, that is, one has to select two out of the three option that presents it self. In the case of the blockchain, as addressed by Vitalik Buterin, the three options to select from are decentralization, scalability and security. To Vitalik Buterin, his concept of Trilemma implies that no blockchain can possess the three features listed above, blockchain must sacrifice one out of the three.

Now to understand this concept more clearly, lets take a look at a scenario where a developer of blockchain develops a blockchain according to the concept of Trilemma, the blockchain is suppose to have either scalability and decentralization without a security or scalability and security without decentralization or security and decentralization without scalability. This means that Trilemma of blockchain is seen in this situations.

From the above scenario or illustrations, this means that the blockchain technology too is not completely free from issues and that also has help in the slow adoption of the technology by many users. If this issues are completely taken care of, then in no distance time the blockchain technology will be completely accepted by eventually all the people. Though, there are claims made by some emerging blockchain like the Cardona blockchain network, Solana blockchain network etc. that the have been able to tackle this issues.

Now, it has not been completely proven that the Cardona blockchain network, Solana blockchain network etc have been able to solve the issues completely, because while using this blockchains, some issues are still seen on them and that implies they are still sacrificing one among the three for the two to work more effectively. We will be looking at the the three things that the Blockchain Trilemma is composed of I.e scalability, decentralization and security in more details as we progress in solving this assignment task.

The Blockchain Trilemma is indeed a Trilemma because we have seen that it is always very difficult for a blockchain to have the three options running at the same time. As we have explained in question 1 above, blockchain developers have no options than to sacrifice one out of the three available but necessary options so that the other two can work effectively.

We have also heard claims as regarding blockchains like Polkadot, Solana etc. saying that the have been able to tackle this Trilemma issues. This is indeed a very good news because with this issues solved many more people will accept the blockchain concept and that will be what will be adopted in the entire universe. So to me, the blockchain Trilemma is really a trilemma but from the use of emerging technology, this trilemma will soon be a history. There is actually no problem that does not have solution. A wish man once said and I quote "once you know the problem, you have been able to solve 60% of it" so knowing this problem alone is a great success and for that reason I conclude by saying blockchain Trilemma will soon be use as a reference to educate people as on of the challenges once faced by blockchain.

When we talk about the word decentralization, we are talking about the main concept in which a blockchain technology is built. Before this time, systems use are centralized system in which a central body takes decision as regarding all the happening in the system without majority of the users concept. The concept of decentralization actually have been able to solve this very issue using the blockchain technology. Now, in a decentralized system, decision making and control of the happenings in the system are all in the hands of distributed system.

In essence, decentralization helps in no small way to promote transparency and security as all transactions carried out in the blockchain can been. This has help to reduce fraudulent acts and many more mischief taking place in the centralized system.

This is also another important aspect of a blockchain technology. As we know there are many people rushing into the blockchain network almost on daily basis. Now, by means of definition, scalability is the ability of the system to adopt to changes without it's function be altered. Take for instance, if a blockchain usually attend to 100k transaction per seconds due to the number of users of the system, and then there is an increase in the number of users and the number of transaction also increased from 100k to 250k, it is expected that a scalable system handles this transaction well without the result been affected.

In the case of Bitcoin is we know the blockchain uses 10 minutes to verify a block and that is not good enough as other blockchain today performs the verification of blocks within seconds. So in that case we say this other blockchain are more scalable than the bitcoin blockchain.

Security is very necessary in every establishment and the case of blockchain is not different at all. As a matter of fact one of the manor factor that makes blockchain more unique is the security feature attached to it. In a blockchain, users are suppose to have absolute control of their asset and your private and public keys should be yours and yours alone. There is this popular saying that not your keys not your asset. This means that anyone with the keys is the chief own of the asset. So security is important so that hackers wont have control over our asset.

The viable solutions to the challenges posed in the Blockchain Trilemma can be solved via two different layers as explained by the professor during his lecture. We are going to look at this layers one after the other I.e layer 1 and layer 2.

Here in this layer, the solution it provides is to help the main blockchain to solve the issues of security, scalability and decentralization. Now, it does this using the methods like improving the consensus mechanism adopted by the block chain and sharding. Let's briefly look at them one after the other.

Improve the Consensus mechanism: As we have learnt from the lecture delivered by the professor himself, bitcoin uses POW consensus algorithm and that has made it not to be scalable enough though it has security and it is decentralized, am believing that if POS consensus algorithm is used on it, a more scalable solution will be gotten by the blockchain.

Sharding: This involves the breaking down of the entire work and then given it to different servers to handle. This means instead on concentrating everything in just one place, the serves will handle different so that the entire process will be faster. Take for instances, the database for Whatsapp as an application, if the same database is holding picture, messages, voice note, video etc, the system will be slow to response but if it is separated and they role of each database is define each with what it should hold then the system will be more scalable.

Here in this layer, other network are created which serves as children to the main network and their main function is to solve the issues that are facing the main network I.e to solve the issues of security, scalability and decentralization. Now, it does this using the methods like building off-chain, nesting the network. Let's briefly look at them one after the other.

Building off-chain network: This will help the main blockchain to solve any issue that will be coming in to the blockchain. This means that before the issue gets to the .ain blockchain, it will encounter the off-chain and the issues will be resolved and that alone will help in reducing the number of workload on the main blockchain.

Nesting the network: As I have explained earlier, there wi be children blockchain which function is to help the main blockchain hence, if workload comes to the main blockchain it will be distributed among the children to help make the work easy and faster and that will enable the main blockchain to be free from too much workload.

Blockchain Trilemma is really a topic of concern, and since it is a problem, the appropriate persons involved have been working to make sure that the problem is eradicated completely. There is no doubt that most blockchain have improved by trying to address this issues completely. So in the nearest future as I have said earlier, the blockchain Trilemma story will be a history and just for education purpose as the issues will be long forgotten. I want to say a big thank you to the professor @nane15 for such an insightful lecture, I do hope to continue learning from you sir.