Vitalik Buterin says Ethereum has solved the blockchain trilemma

For those who don't know, the Blockchain Trilemma is the challenge of simultaneously achieving three core goals in a blockchain: Decentralization, Security, and Scalability.

The core idea, which has been popularized by Ethereum's Vitalik Buterin too, is that most blockchains can only optimize two of these pillars at once, often compromising the third; for example, increasing speed (scalability) might reduce decentralization or security, while stronger security might slow down transactions.

There's been evidence of this across major blockchains such as Bitcoin.

Being the most secured blockchain by public consensus, Bitcoin has had to trade off scalability for that security.

Block time set to 10 minutes.

Limited block space.

Both contributing to slow and expensive transaction costs, especially during increased transacting participants.

Ethereum, has also had to sacrifice scalability for security and decentralization.

This has placed it in public ridicule over the years.

Vitalik now claims that Ethereum has solved the blockchain trilemma.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin claims Ethereum has “solved” one of the biggest challenges in crypto: the blockchain trilemma.

In a X post on Saturday, Buterin emphasized the potential of peer data availability sampling (PeerDAS) and Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines (zkEVMs), noting that these two upgrades are making Ethereum “a fundamentally new and more powerful kind of decentralized network.”

“Now, Ethereum with PeerDAS (2025) and ZK-EVMs (expect small portions of the network using it in 2026), we get: decentralized, consensus and high bandwidth,” he said, adding:

“The trilemma has been solved — not on paper, but with live running code, of which one half (data availability sampling) is on mainnet today, and the other half (ZK-EVMs) is production-quality on performance today — safety is what remains.” – Cointelegraph report

Scaling Ethereum

I lack the technical foundation to validate the claim that PeerDAS and zkEVMs gets Ethereum to the stage of solving the blockchain trilemma challenge.

What I can comment on is what this would mean for the ecosystem.

Much of the crypto industry is all about achieving mass adoption.

The one thing that has hindered that reality has been scalability.

I know it's tempting to challenge this conclusion by highlighting UI flaws across crypto apps and weaknesses in onboarding flows, but I would argue that all of that means very little if the tech that powers it all isn't built to scale.

It is much better that we achieve scalability before fixing any and all UI and onboarding flaws.

If web3 apps want to challenge their web2 competitors, the tech they are running on has to be able to withstand success.

It is also worth pointing out that scalability isn't all that matters. There are many blockchains faster, cheaper and ultimately more scalable than Ethereum, but they are often trading something for this ability to scale, significantly.

In many cases, this is often decentralization and effectively, security.

Being decentralized, secure and scalable, is the only way to go, if we aim to build the future that has always been envisioned.

That future is one where finance isn't centralized, where everyone has the agency to move at their own pace and not be tied to a system that robs them.

I think that over the next 2-3 years, we'll get to discuss this development more extensively and be able to decipher what lengths of truth is contained in this claim.

Posted Using INLEO