The trade-off that blockchains struggle to optimize decentralization, security, and scalability simultaneously.
The scalability trilemma suggests a blockchain can usually optimize two of three properties—decentralization, security, and scalability—at the expense of the third. Architectures attempt to mitigate this via sharding, L2s, and optimized consensus.
"Solana optimizes for throughput and low latency, while Bitcoin prioritizes security and decentralization; both reflect different trade-offs of the trilemma."
All terms and definitions may update as the Cryptionary improves.