Opinion by Grigore Roșu, founder and CEO of Pi Squared Challenging blockchain’s dominance in Web3 may seem radical to proponents who built careers on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and their successors. However, given blockchain’s well-known scaling limitations, Web3 doesn’t necessarily require blockchains to flourish. Instead, it needs payment systems and verifiable settlement mechanisms that are extremely fast—blockchain is just one method among others. While blockchain solved the double-spending problem, it introduced a significant architectural constraint: an obsession with total ordering, where every transaction must be sequentially processed via a global consensus mechanism. This model initially worked well for payments, prioritizing security and simplicity. Yet, for Web3’s complex applications demanding speed, flexibility, and scalability, this rigid sequencing becomes a bottleneck, limiting throughput and developer options. The influence of FastPay exemplifies alternative approaches. This mobile remittance app demonstrated that double-spending can be prevented without enforcing total order, inspiring systems like Linera that maintain local independent orderings with global verifiability. FastPay also influenced innovations such as POD and Sui’s single-owner objects protocol. Had FastPay preceded Bitcoin, blockchain might never have gained the cultural and technical prominence it enjoys today. Critics may insist total ordering is critical for financial integrity or decentralization, but these beliefs conflate a specific method of trustlessness with the concept itself. True decentralization depends on the verifiability of transactions, not necessarily their strict global sequence. Blockchain’s growing challenges persist. Ethereum’s recent Dencun upgrade, which introduces "blobs" to boost throughput, still relies fundamentally on total ordering. Solana’s Lattice system, despite innovation, experiences outages from bugs and overload.

The proliferation of Layer 2 solutions mostly offsets mainnet congestion temporarily, batching transactions with delays rather than solving foundational scaling issues. The mantra “evolve or die” holds for investors and developers tied to traditional blockchains. Future protocols focusing on flexible, verifiable payments and settlements without fixed ordering will enable higher throughput and better user experiences. As decentralized applications mature and AI-driven autonomous agents interact with blockchains, the cost of enforcing strict sequencing will become a competitive disadvantage. Signs of this transition are evident: modular blockchain frameworks like Celestia reflect growing acknowledgment that classical blockchains are too inflexible. Innovations such as data availability layers, execution shards, and offchain verification aim to separate trusted validation from limiting sequencing. Though not fully breaking from the past, these efforts point to a more adaptable infrastructure future. Blockchain is not disappearing but must transform. Its enduring role may shift toward that of a universal verifier—a decentralized notary within a more agile ecosystem rather than a master ledger. This necessary evolution faces challenges, as substantial capital, ideologies, and careers remain deeply invested in the legacy blockchain narrative. Many venture funds, DeFi protocols, and “Ethereum killers” are committed financially and reputationally to blockchain centrality. Yet history rarely favors incumbents who resist change. Just as the internet outgrew early walled gardens, Web3 is poised to move beyond rigid block-based sequencing, rewarding those who recognize and leverage this pivotal inflection point. This article is for general information and does not constitute legal or investment advice. The views expressed are solely the author’s and may not reflect those of Cointelegraph.