Design priorities (one school of thought)

One school of thought holds that blockchain designs trade between three priorities: keeping node operation open to ordinary users, resisting attacks, and processing more activity. In this view, raising base-layer throughput raises the cost of full verification, which narrows who can independently verify the chain, so capacity is better added in other layers. A counter-view holds that base-layer capacity can grow with hardware and bandwidth, that a stated protocol limit can be a real design parameter, that most users verify through light clients or proofs rather than full nodes, and that added layers bring their own trust assumptions. Each iKnow Blockchain profile states which priorities a design emphasizes and what it gives up, in words rather than a score; those fields use this school's framing.

Key idea. Ask who can verify the chain after it scales, by which method (a full node, a light client or a proof), and what extra trust users accept in exchange.

Example

Moving activity to rollups or channels keeps base-layer node costs low but adds sequencer, bridge or channel-liveness assumptions. Raising base-layer capacity keeps activity on one layer but asks more of every full node, while users who verify through light clients or proofs need less. The two views weigh these costs differently.

Keep in mind

The three-corner framing belongs to this school of thought. Under it, a claim that a design maximizes all three corners at once is recorded as contested; the label reflects the framing, not a measurement.
Emphasis labels are editorial summaries of cited design documents, not measurements or rankings.

Sources

Provenance

Comparison design card, profile schema Compare Contract r1.3.

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