What is missing to the blockchains to become mainstream? | by Minijump | Jan, 2024

Blockchain has the potential to change how things work in many areas, but there are things holding it back from being widely used. This article looks at the main reasons why blockchain isn’t mainstream yet and what needs to be fixed. From issues like scalability to dealing with regulations, figuring out these challenges is important for blockchain to become a regular part of our digital world. Let’s explore what’s missing and what’s already there for blockchain to become more popular and widely accepted.

Graphs used in this article comes from a dashboard I created with dune.

1. Scalability

Scalability refers to a system’s ability to efficiently handle increased workload.

What is the problem there? The problem is that if we want to see decentralized finance, art, games, … we will need a system that supports a gigantic number of transactions. Let’s look at the following graph; it shows the number of weekly transactions done on the Ethereum network. We see a peak in 2021, corresponding to the bull run. This peak has reached 10 million transactions. That’s a lot, for sure; however, it is not close to enough if you seek a decentralized world.

What does it mean? Is it a lost cause? Will decentralization never occur? If we refer to the definition of scalability, Ethereum only needs to be able to scale to increased workloads. We clearly see on the graph that the number of transactions has risen since 2017, and we do not even take into account Layer 2 solutions that now handle a significant amount of transactions. This means that even if Ethereum’s blockchain is not sufficient to meet all the demand, we can hope to find future technologies that will help achieve this goal.

That is where lies the interesting point. Thanks to its structural interoperability, blockchain technology is scalable. Bridges, sharding, rollups, Layer 2 solutions, and other technologies have emerged in recent years, enabling blockchains to manage an increasing number of transactions. You can see on the graph below the number of monthly transactions executed on…