TLDR

Blockchain architecture is currently constrained by the tradeoff between scalability and decentralization.

Prioritizing scalability improves user experience and enables latency-sensitive applications but increases tail risk through concentrated failure points.
Maximizing decentralization ensures strong uptime guarantees but adds UX friction.

OptimumP2P eliminates this tradeoff.

Powered by RLNC data coding, it delivers ultra-fast data transmission across global networks while preserving full decentralization.
By reducing network latency and increasing bandwidth without centralizing effects, OptimumP2P creates a flywheel where scalability and decentralization reinforce each other—unlocking benefits for the entire ecosystem.

On Blockchain Tradeoffs

Throughout blockchain history, scaling has been tethered to decentralization. Every chain has taken their own approach, but most can be boiled down to either “We make zero sacrifices to decentralization and we’ll work in some scaling where we can”, or “we’re fine with less decentralization, let’s maximize our performance instead”. Essentially the Ethereum vs. Solana debate in a nutshell, and the core concept of the blockchain trilemma. You can go faster by raising hardware requirements for validators, or keeping them confined to a geographical region, but even those approaches hit their limits.

Decentralize to Scale is our way of saying that we’re flipping the script, introducing a mechanism where decentralization feeds into scalability and every network participant can take part in making the chain faster. Because who doesn’t love a good flywheel?

Defining The Tradeoff

Before we talk about Optimum’s solution, let’s take a second to really set the stage on the tradeoffs that exist today and the choices each of these chains have made.Scalability is relatively simple to define: how fast a blockchain processes transactions and how well that speed is maintained as traffic rises. Decentralization is much more multifaceted, but here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of factors that can be used to determine where a chain sits on the spectrum of decentralization.

Number of sequencers / leaders
Foundation delegated stake %
Geographic distribution
Use of Consensus (as in L2s exporting consensus to L1)
Hardware / bandwidth / stake requirements to run a validator

Prominent Approaches: Ethereum & Solana

Ethereum’s Path: Maintain wide node distribution and censorship-resistance at the cost of lower throughput (~20 TPS). Establish layer 2 chains to scale, which make their own speed/centralization tradeoffs both in design (single sequencers for example) and governance (political decentralization).

Solana’s Trade-Off: Stake-weighted leader rotation schedule, assigning a new leader roughly every four blocks (~1.6s). This design underpins Solana’s peak throughput (~50K TPS) but concentrates leadership power among high-stake validators, introducing centralization risks around block production and censorship.

Both chains have seen success with their approaches, and received their fair share of criticisms as well. The important thing to remember about the blockchain trilemma is it’s not a hard “one or the other” choice between scale or decentralization, it’s a sliding scale where you give a little on one side in return for strengthening another. So while you can argue that Solana is reasonably decentralized, or that Ethereum has decent throughput & fees, users want the best of both worlds.

Users Care About Decentralization, They Just Don’t Always Know It

Every user is always going to care about speed and low fees, but decentralization is equally important even if it’s not as tangible to end users. The more centralized a chain is, the more concentrated its points of failure are, the more likely some tail risk event will disrupt the network. Something like a cloud provider banning a large chunk of Solana validators, or an API failure halting operations on Hyperliquid are examples of how centralization can magnify the impact of infrastructure issues and potentially impact users.

As more and more economic activity moves onchain the costs of those potential tail risks grow, making an emphasis on building robust decentralized networks even more important. The industry is already seeing this play out with major institutions choosing to build on Ethereum thanks to its 10 years zero downtime track record.

Optimum's goal is to eliminate the false choice between scalability and decentralization. We enable any blockchain to achieve the throughput and cost efficiency needed for mass adoption while preserving the robust decentralization and security that mission-critical applications demand.

No more trade-offs—just a blockchain infrastructure that delivers on all fronts. Instead of chains addressing security and throughput needs by centralizing their validator set, chains will leverage RLNC to achieve those qualities across a decentralized validator set.

So how does Optimum deliver the best of both worlds?

RLNC: Turning Decentralization into Scale

Random Linear Network Coding is a type of erasure code, designed specifically for transmitting data across decentralized networks. The core idea is to mix data packets via random linear combinations, improving throughput and resilience as they flow from node to node. There are a handful of special properties inherent to RLNC, which we ran through in a recent thread.

Because of these properties- Recoding, early forwarding, and decoding with any combination of shards, RLNC thrives in massive globally distributed networks, whereas other propagation methods slow down. Its data propagation advantages are proven in testing, with OptimumP2P delivering 600%-3000% lower latency compared to Ethereum’s current propagation method, Gossipsub.

Propagation with RLNC means each new node that adopts OptimumP2P increases the coding diversity, reducing propagation bottlenecks and enabling parallel data retrieval.

The requirements for a node to run OptimumP2P are low. Any machine that’s running an Ethereum Client can use it so the validator set is not limited in any way. OptimumP2P also lowers the bandwidth used to propagate data, making lesser equipped nodes more effective to the point where increasing block size & reducing block times is possible without alienating smaller validators.

This is what turning the trilemma into the flywheel looks like, decentralization and scalability working in unison instead of counteracting each other. Add more nodes, push more blocks faster, don’t sacrifice anywhere.

What Does Decentralized Scalability Make Possible?

At the network level - The best of both worlds scenario starts to take shape as OptimumP2P adoption increases. For Ethereum, that means increasing throughput, reducing latency, and lowering transaction costs without sacrificing on the decentralization and security that makes it an ideal digital economic destination. In the case of Solana & other high performance chains, you have an already high performance chain that would enjoy even lower latency and higher throughput while also being able to improve on decentralization by diversifying their validator set. RLNC and OptimumP2P are purpose-built to maximize scalability as transaction counts and message sizes increase. In other words the more a chain’s usage grows, the better RLNC performs.

At the validator level - Higher staking APYs through more timely proposal and attestation of more profitable blocks, as well as lower operational costs from more efficient resource usage. OptimumP2P is already gaining traction among top Ethereum validators, with teams such as Kiln, Everstake, P2P.org, and more participating in the testnet.

At the application level - Better blockchains bring rise to better applications. When latency and throughput aren’t holding builders back, all sorts of novel and improved applications can come onchain. Now it becomes fully feasible for global payments platforms. I touched on a couple of sectors that are primed to capitalize on this (CLOBs, DePIN) in a previous post.

At the end user level - Broadly, user experience will take the next step forward. Faster cheaper transactions that stay fast and cheap even when network traffic rises. Fit for frictionless payments, complex DeFi strategies, high frequency trading, social networks, gaming… everything.

True scaling emerges from decentralization, not despite it.

Follow us on our mission to usher in a new era for blockchains. Our Ethereum Hoodi testnet deployment begins soon, and we’ll be documenting our progress on the @get_optimum account along the way to mainnet.