Blockchains don’t scale. Not today, at least. But there’s hope.

Too Long; Didn't Read

The first Bitcoin <a href="https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf" target="_blank">paper</a> was first released in 2008. My excitement about the potential of blockchain technology has been building ever since.&nbsp;<br>&nbsp;<br>Decentralized digital currency, once just a far-fetched goal, is finally making inroads into the mainstream. While that’s exciting on its own merit, I’m personally most excited about the potential for decentralized applications. Financial exchanges, prediction markets, and asset management platforms all carry enormous potential.&nbsp;<br>&nbsp;<br>The <em>trustless systems </em>supporting them are no less intriguing; identity verification systems, smart property, <em>censorship resistant </em>social platforms, and <em>autonomous structures and</em> <em>governance models</em> like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organization" target="_blank">DAOs</a>. The most disruptive use cases probably haven’t even been dreamt up yet.&nbsp;<br>&nbsp;<br>But this dream still remains a dream for the foreseeable future — while a few early enthusiasts and entrepreneurs are experimenting with building such applications, there’s still a big missing piece that prevents us from seeing these applications come to fruition<em>: </em><strong><em>scalability</em></strong><em>. </em><strong>Blockchains, as it stands today, are limited in their ability to scale. </strong><br>&nbsp;<br>That’s not to say that this will be the case forever, but it’s definitely true today. In fact, I’d argue it’s one of the biggest technological barriers we face with blockchain technology today. It’s quickly become a very active area of research among researchers in the community and cryptocurrency in general.