People have applied blockchain technology to other areas, besides payments, thanks to its decentralised and secure nature.
Scalability is what Ethereum founder, Vitalik Buterin, calls a component of the "blockchain trilemma."
Buterin's thesis explains that no blockchain network can equally provide decentralisation, security, and scalability. They must sacrifice certain elements to achieve near-optimal functionality.
Bitcoin and Ethereum trade off scalability for security and decentralisation for scalability. That explains why a major blockchain network like Bitcoin can process around 7 transactions per second. For context, Visa's payments system can process up to 24,000 transactions per second.
If blockchain technology must attract more users, it must solve the scalability problem. Several solutions have appeared in recent years, including the now-popular “layer 2” protocols.
Click HERE to find out what layer 2 blockchain means, how it works, and why it’s important for blockchain adoption.