The dVPN Quadrilemma

The blockchain trilemma is well known, but let’s extend it to our context. Along with Decentralisation, Scalability, and Security, the dVPN can definitely add a fourth important aspect — SPEED. Most development teams don’t realize the real trade-offs or just don’t want to. The ability to understand this simple, but fundamental idea, is crucial.

1) Decentralization

This term does not have an exact definition, but according to the general consensus can be defined in several areas as follows:

1.1 Technical decentralization — implies no single point of failure (i.e. company servers) or any possibility of network control through the execution or modification of software. If the software is open source software and relying on a popular public blockchain, then this aspect is fully covered.

1.2 Governance — is a hot topic right now, but not the most important for dVPN. If a team that maintains open source software tries to abuse the core network software, other developers can execute a “hard fork” and replace it. Even without sophisticated DAO, the project can sustain itself for a long time. The best examples of this are the Bitcoin Core team contributors and Ethereum.

1.3 Regulatory decentralization — the absence of a single jurisdiction that can define the rules and impose a framework on the workings of the network. This aspect is fully covered by native blockchain features.

1.4 Monetary decentralization — means the ability of anyone in the world to execute borderless p2p payments in crypto currency which are freely available on the market. Covered by native blockchain features and by the concept of ERC20 utility tokens in particular.

1.5 Economic decentralization — the lack of a single authority that can influence the decentralized p2p market economy (i.e. set prices for traffic). All economic relations should be built p2p only between network participants. Dedicated smart contracts on a public blockchain (i.e. Ethereum) covering this topic.

“Decentralization, including all of the aspects from 1.1 to 1.5, is an absolutely necessary condition for a reliable dVPN”