What Is The Blockchain Storage Trilemma and How Do We Remedy It?

You’ve heard of the blockchain trilemma describing the problem of concurrently reaching three essential goals in designing a crypto community: safety, decentralization, and scalability. Because the rule goes, reaching all three directly is extraordinarily troublesome, with most blockchains pressured to prioritize two on the expense of the third.
However are you au fait with the blockchain storage trilemma? If you happen to’re not, that’s okay – most individuals aren’t, outdoors of initiatives tasked with growing web3 storage options. Nevertheless it’s a helpful rubric to know since it would grant you a higher appreciation of the challenges web3 builders face and an perception into the advances being made in addressing this lesser recognized blockchain trilemma.
It goes like this: decentralized storage must be scalable, good contract native, and provide random entry. And sure, it’s extraordinarily exhausting to realize all three concurrently – however not unimaginable. Let’s take a more in-depth take a look at how this works and why it issues within the design of blockchain storage options.
Reaching the Inconceivable 
Blockchains aren’t the one methods whose designers should make compromises. Nonetheless, the necessity for blockchain methods to attain extremely for sure traits, coupled with the extreme competitors between completely different web3 protocols for market share, locations these trade-offs middle stage. You may not know the design compromises that dictated the engineering of the Golden Gate Bridge or the Burj Khalifa, however you possibly can immediately checklist the the explanation why Ethereum is extra decentralized than Tezos or why Solana is ready to obtain higher throughput than Solana.
As for blockchain storage, whereas an engineering-level information of the way it all suits collectively isn't required, there’s worth in understanding the core rules underpinning its structure. Because the variety of dapps will increase and the information calls for made by every will increase exponentially, decentralized storage goes to turn out to be extra essential than ever. Web3 requires entry to devoted storage that permits L1s and L2s to host dapps with out inflicting fundamental chain bloat.
The query is, can the blockchain scalability trilemma be satisfactorily solved. Or, like different well-known blockchain scalability trilemmas, is a partial 2/3 resolution the most effective we will anticipate?
Tackling the Hardest Trilemma
The three cores comprising the storage trilemma could be damaged down as follows:
Scalability: Within the context of storage this implies with the ability to help limitless storage – or on the very least exabytes’ value, which is actually the identical factor on condition that we’re presently within the period of gigabyte decentralized storage. Within the close to future, the information calls for of dapps goes to skyrocket due to make use of instances reminiscent of AI and thus future-proofed web3 options should be capable to ship knowledge by the bucketload – or exabyte load to be exact.
Good contract native: It’s one factor to make knowledge out there on decentralized file storage networks. It’s one other to make it immediately built-in into good contract blockchains reminiscent of Ethereum and Solana in order that it may be accessed by native dapps in real-time. Native storage is quicker to question because it’s optimized for the community it’s being accessed on. This requirement is especially essential for dealing with advanced dapps that devour huge quantities of information and use it to generate outputs as good contracts.
Random entry: When knowledge is assigned to a community of decentralized nodes, it isn’t being positioned in an archival vault: it’s meant to be stay and queryable at a second’s discover. For this to happen, knowledge must be effectively saved to help dynamic interactions by dapps requiring real-time knowledge and analytics. File-level entry isn’t sufficient: web3 storage wants to offer random entry identical to a daily pc exhausting drive.
The State of Storage At this time
Extant web3 storage options reminiscent of IPFS and Arweave rating nicely for decentralization and safety – necessary qualities that each one blockchain infrastructure needs to be optimized for – however don’t fare so nicely when ranked for scalability, good contract nativeness, or random entry. The vast majority of incumbent decentralized storage options designed to carry recordsdata or archives – i.e. objects – which makes querying them exhausting. In addition they turn out to be costly to make use of as soon as storage strikes previous gigabytes and into terabytes and even exabytes.So what’s the answer? There’s no single resolution that can deal with the information wants of all dapps within the close to future, and nor ought to there be. Decentralization, in spite of everything, extends to having a various selection of operators to make sure redundancy. The storage layers that meet the wants of the subsequent wave of decentralized functions will most often be designed for particular blockchain networks and languages, enabling them to be natively built-in into good contracts and scalable via massively enhancing the principle chain’s storage capability whereas working throughout the constraints of its structure.
The closest factor we presently must a storage resolution that scores nicely throughout all three pillars of the storage trilemma might be Xandeum, the Solana venture that’s designed to host nearly limitless quantities of information with direct integration with Solana good contracts. Knowledge will also be rapidly queried, supporting random entry. The analogies which have been drawn between Solana as a house pc and Xandeum because the exhausting drive that completes its specification are nicely based.
However blockchain is greater than Solana and for different L1 chains, reaching this degree of information storage requires devoted options which have been optimized for the programming language inherent to the community in query reminiscent of Solidity or Rust. That is the one method to implement storage that enhances decentralized functions whereas offering blockchain networks with the capability to scale. For EVM networks, this can be achieved via implementations constructed on present providers reminiscent of Arweave that improve their capabilities, notably when it comes to pace (random entry) and being good contract native.
Blockchain trilemmas are notoriously troublesome to unravel. However the rewards for doing so make the toil worthwhile. If builders can grasp decentralized storage, the upside – just like the capability itself – is uncapped.
 
Disclaimer: This text is offered for informational functions solely. It isn't provided or meant for use as authorized, tax, funding, monetary, or different recommendation.