Founder of CyberCapital: Monolithic is the future of Blockchain scalability

Original article by Justin Bons, founder of Cyber Capital

Original compilation: Luffy, Foresight News

Blockchain can achieve scalability in three ways:

• “L2 scaling” (BTC, ETH, TIA)
• Parallelization (SOL, APT, SUI)
• Sharding (TON, NEAR, EGLD)

Sharding is the future, and parallelization is an inevitable trend. In my opinion, this is the end of everything.

Because “L2 scaling” brings a poor user experience and a weak token economic model, it cannot control fees within the L1 range, and fragmentation destroys the user experience. Monolithic Blockchain scaling methods (parallelization and Sharding) do not have these fatal flaws because they are a coherent whole.

Parallelization is an inevitable trend, as it would be foolish for client software not to support multithreading. All modern CPUs have multiple cores, but chains like Ethereum and Bitcoin still only process transactions in order, which results in most validator hardware being underutilized, which is a huge waste.

The same is true for sharding chains, as each shard should be parallelized

• Maximize individual shard capacity
• Sharding is a further implementation of the logic of parallelization
• Distribute workloads across multiple machines by scaling concurrency from multi-core

This breaks the previous scalability limitations.

Sharding systems are now capable of achieving more than 100,000 TPS, with a theoretical limit close to 1 million TPS. At the same time, Sharding has relatively low Node requirements. This is how to solve the Blockchain trilemma through Sharding.

Traditional Blockchain designs face a trilemma. Because at some point, Node requirements become so high that Decentralization threatens. Because all Nodes must validate all global state updates, it is fundamentally unscalable. Sharding solves this problem.

Unlike traditional designs, sharded chains can scale capacity based on usage, while non-sharded chains will always end up facing a cap. When the Sharding Chain gains more usage and validator adoption, it can start a new Sharding. In other words, Sharding scales linearly.

While other blockchains scale quadratically, which means that as the network grows, Node requirements become higher and higher until the physical limit is reached. There is a limit to what we can do within a single silicon chip compared to what can be achieved with a computer network.

There are a lot of misconceptions about sharding, and I would like to make two points here:

• “You can attack a single shard”; rebuttal: Since the validator is random, the shards share L1 security
• “No composability”; rebuttal: Cross-Sharding communication is natively built-in, ensuring seamless interoperability

The irony of these criticisms is that “L2 scaling” is more likely to make the same mistakes:

• “You can attack a single L2”; this is true, especially considering that managing secret keys and decentralization sequencers requires their own consensus
• “No composability”;

Fortunately, the leap from parallelization to sharding is much shorter compared to modular Blockchain.

At the same time, parallelization is likely to provide enough capacity for many years to come, which is why I support the latter two scenarios.

Monolithic scaling still allows for modular scaling with L2, allowing the free market to choose the best solution, while modular scaling is more akin to the planned economy of L1 mandating modular scaling.

We should let the market choose another L1/L2.

We have to draw a line when it comes to modular Blockchain, and I’m sure modular scaling is a technical dead end. Worse, it takes us backwards because people mistakenly associate modular design with Crypto Assets. Slow, expensive and difficult, that’s modularity.

Whereas, the monocoque design is fast, cheap, easy to use and understand. If the community provides enough resistance, Ethereum could still return to sharding, which could lead to a Block Debate-style fork as conservatives try to hold on to their power.

There is no doubt that the entrenched power within Ethereum will not be easily subverted. Venture capital and tokens provide strong incentives for Ethereum’s L1 scaling. Since Ethereum also lacks good on-chain governance, it may be easier to vote with your feet.

I am not an enemy of Ethereum, but a friend of it. If I’m right, then Ethereum’s biggest enemy is its entrenched leadership, and Bitcoin is no different.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Tribalism aside, the bottom line is whether the evolution of Blockchain technology is following the right path: monolithic scaling, as I said. Advocates of modular scaling often cite the Blockchain trilemma as a supporting argument for the scheme.

I respect this ideology because there are a lot of good and Satoshi people who support “L2 scaling”.

However, this belief is based on a flawed assumption. Evidence of a viable L1 extension is piling up, and it’s turning into a mountain. It’s too big to ignore, with competing Blockchain outpacing Bitcoin and Ethereum in multiple metrics.

The truth is there, monolithic scaling is the future, enabling everyone to work directly with the Blockchain, bringing us back to Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision.