MarsBit published an article arguing that the blockchain industry’s long-running focus on the so-called “trilemma” is misplaced. The trilemma refers to the tension among decentralization, scalability and security, but the article describes that framework as a false problem rather than the fundamental obstacle facing public blockchains.
According to the article, the more important constraints are legitimacy and privacy. It states that the permissionless nature of public chains creates regulatory uncertainty, while full transparency exposes users’ financial data in public. That transparency also gives rise to hidden costs such as MEV, making the data environment unsuitable for broader financial use cases.
The article’s proposed direction is a cryptographic upgrade built around “default privacy + provable compliance.” In this model, user financial information would be protected by default, while compliance could still be demonstrated. The article says such a structure would allow institutional capital and mainstream financial applications to move on-chain in a safer way.