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A prevalent misunderstanding in the current discussion about web3 scaling is that widespread adoption necessitates faster, larger, and more potent blockchains. Each cycle witnesses the emergence of a new generation of chains, boasting millions of transactions per second and nearly nonexistent fees.
Summary
- Pursuing high TPS mimics the flawed single-core “faster clock” mindset of the 1980s; blockchains were designed for final settlement rather than high-frequency clearing, rendering monolithic L1/L2 structures fundamentally at odds with real-world needs.
- Gas fees introduce both psychological and economic obstacles; liquidity remains fragmented across chains, leading to over $2B in anticipated bridge exploits by 2025, while developers grapple with cross-chain complications that hinder user experience and slow innovation.
- Off-chain, trustless L3 clearing layers — similar to banking’s TrustFi model — facilitate gasless user engagements, consolidate liquidity without perilous bridges, and promote parallelized scaling through specialization instead of sheer blockspace.
Historical trends in computing show that one million instructions per second (1 MIPS) were first achieved by supercomputers in 1964, followed by minicomputers in 1977, and by 1984, Intel home processors were also capable of 1-3 MIPS. Today, computing transactions occur in Teraflops (trillions of operations), and with supercomputers, we are witnessing operations at the Peta or Exaflops level (quadrillions and quintillions). Meanwhile, discussions around blockchains remain fixated on millions of TPS, reminiscent of an outdated era. This obsession with throughput represents a technological impasse, echoing fundamental missteps from the computing industry’s beginnings — the 1984 Processor Problem.
L1 blockchains resurrect the 1984 dilemma
During the 1980s, computer engineers fixated on enhancing the clock speed of single-core processors. They assumed that increased clock speed equated to faster computing. This pursuit pushed silicon to its physical limits until they encountered a technological dead end, with excessive heat and power consumption creating insurmountable challenges. The breakthrough for the next computing era was not a swifter single core, but the transition to multi-core systems and, crucially, specialization and parallelization.
Currently, L1 and L2 blockchains are repeating these errors. They strive to serve as the singular, monolithic solution for all transaction types, from significant transfers to micro-payments in personal banking. This approach is ineffective.
Analogize it to a trip to the grocery store: when purchasing apples, oranges, and bananas, you don’t finalize payment for each individual fruit. Instead, you aggregate your items, receive one total invoice, and settle at the end. Current blockchains are inefficiently attempting to settle every individual fruit separately. Blockchains were intended for final settlement, not high-frequency, low-value transactions. Addressing these structural failures is essential for achieving mass adoption.
Structural obstacles to web3 adoption
Primarily, the Gas Fee Barrier poses the most significant challenge to scaling. Even low-cost chains require users to pay a fee for every interaction, erecting psychological and economic barriers to adoption. In reality, web3 necessitates zero-gas settlement for the majority of everyday interactions.
The following hurdle to address is Liquidity Fragmentation. Assets are confined across numerous chains, leading to isolated liquidity pools. In the first half of 2025 alone, hackers absconded with over $2.17 billion, with cross-chain bridges and access control exploits serving as primary attack vectors. This fragmentation undermines the potential for a healthy, unified financial market that web3 aims to foster.
We must recognize that constructing a truly cross-chain dApp is a complex, multi-protocol engineering challenge. Developers are forced to devote time managing the intricacies of multiple chains rather than concentrating on the application layer. This complexity hampers innovation and leads to the cumbersome user experiences that afflict many web3 applications today.
The transition to P2P clearing?
A viable resolution to the 1984 Processor Problem is to embrace specialization and divert most transactional activity off the main blockchain. We require a peer-to-peer trustless solution, eliminating the need for 30,000 computers to oversee trades, while still settling on-chain ultimately.
This proposed method contradicts the trend of creating another Layer-2 rollup, which is still dependent on the L1 for execution and finality. It advocates for establishing a Layer-3 network that specializes in high-frequency, peer-to-peer clearing and settlement. This L3 can employ simplified, efficient TrustFi technology to facilitate real-time, non-custodial, cross-chain trading off-chain. In the TrustFi model, millions of transactions are processed daily between banks, with only the net balances settled via the central bank. In web3, the L1 serves as the central bank for ultimate settlement, while the L3 operates as a trustless, decentralized clearinghouse.
As a result, most user interactions could potentially become gasless, eliminating the primary psychological barrier to entry. The L3 could function as a ‘network of networks,’ unifying fragmented liquidity pools without relying on risky bridges. Ultimately, developers would be able to create complex, cross-chain applications that obscure the underlying intricacies of varied blockchains.
Historical patterns in computing teach us that scaling is more swiftly achieved through architectural innovation, rather than brute force. We must shift away from the notion of a singular, faster processor and instead focus on building the specialized, parallelized infrastructure that the global economy demands. The future of web3 does not lie in larger blocks, but in trustless, P2P clearing layers that harmonize the principles of decentralization with the speed and cost needed in modern life.
