As blockchain technology is massively adopted, L1 networks are increasingly facing a dilemma: maintain decentralization or sacrifice it for speed and efficiency. Eric Chen, head of the Injective project, has expressed serious concern about this. He notes that growing user demands for high throughput inevitably push developers toward compromises that could undermine the fundamental principle of distributed ledgers.
Centralization, according to the expert, indeed simplifies the network scaling process and allows achieving impressive transactions per second metrics. However, this creates a critical single point of failure, contradicting the very idea of blockchain as a system resistant to censorship and attacks. Chen emphasizes that such an architecture makes the network vulnerable and negates its key advantages.
There is a solution: specialized zones and L2 solutions
To solve this fundamental problem, Chen suggests not abandoning decentralization but seeking workarounds. He sees the most promising approaches as using dedicated subnets and second-layer (L2) solutions. These approaches allow offloading the main network without sacrificing its security and distribution. Essentially, this is a compromise where speed and scalability are moved to the periphery, while the blockchain core remains decentralized.
Analytical conclusion: Chen's warning is not just criticism of the current development path of L1, but a constructive signal for the entire market. In my opinion, the race for performance without regard for decentralization is a path toward creating "improved" centralized databases that will lose community trust. It is hybrid architectures, combining the power of L2 with the reliability of L1, that will become the dominant trend in 2024-2025. Projects that do not recognize this necessity risk being left behind.