what the fuck! Has a16z also lost confidence in encryption? Recently, it has been said that DeFi cannot sustain the real financial market! This is actually quite embarrassing. What has been the industry's favorite topic of praise in recent years? TPS。 Throughput. Tens of thousands of strokes, hundreds of thousands of strokes, listening to each one more fiercely. But a16z no longer believes this. It is more concerned about when your transaction can be put on the chain after it is sent out. Will they be cut in line. Will it be watched by someone first. If this thing is not solved, DeFi should not boast that it can catch the real financial market. 1. The biggest problem with DeFi now is not that it cannot handle transactions, but that transaction execution is fundamentally unreliable. In the payment scenario, one can tolerate being a few seconds slow. The financial market is not functioning. Market makers adjust prices. Auction bid. Liquidation. cancel the order. Slow down on these things, and the money will be gone. Just think about it and you'll know. When the market fluctuates, the first reaction of market makers is always to withdraw old orders and place new orders. The promise given to you by the result chain is only: Your transaction will eventually go live on the blockchain But I don't know which one is more advanced. This is useless. Because others can go in earlier than you, they can fiercely eliminate your outdated quotes. What can market makers do in the end? Make the difference bigger. User transactions are worse. The on chain market can never achieve true depth. 2. The problem is not at the application layer, it's at the bottom layer that too much power has been handed over to the developers. Now many chains, in essence, are the the final say of a leader. Who is the first to block. Who is behind the block. Who better not enter the block. Everyone looks at it. This is very convenient in engineering. This is a big hole in finance. Because as long as you have this power, you can naturally earn this kind of money: First, look at other people's orders. Delay other people's orders. Insert your own sheet in front. Or simply not allowing others to enter. This is not just a clamp issue. This is a problem with the market structure itself. To put it simply, many on chain markets are not losing due to insufficient product spending. Losing to the underlying rules is unfair. 3. As long as someone can take a look at your order first or prevent it from being listed, many markets will naturally not grow. Auction is the simplest example. If someone can review your bid, Then he can directly block others and take it at a low price himself. If he can't block you, but can see your bid first, That's the same. He just needs to press you a little bit. Or if he finds that your price is no longer worth it, he will not accept it and let you lose money on your own. Spot, perpetual, and derivative products are essentially the same. As long as there is a role in the system that has two types of privileges at the same time: 1、 Can't let you go on the chain. 2、 I can see you before confirmation. That market will eventually be disrupted. 4. DeFi can still run now, not because the design is already right, but because everyone is still relying on patches to support it. Why is the problem so obvious that on chain transactions haven't completely died out yet? One reason is that many nodes have not yet used their power to the fullest extent. It's not that it can't be used. Still concerned about long-term benefits. Another reason is that the application layer recognizes it itself. Put the most critical execution off chain. Only final settlement is done on the chain. Of course, this can help to breathe a sigh of relief. But the cost is also evident. The composability deteriorates. The system is more fragmented. You need to trust the set of things off the chain to prevent any accidents. Essentially, this is acknowledging: Many chains nowadays cannot withstand the truly high demands of financial execution. 5. So the real bottleneck in DeFi has never been TPS, it's trading certainty and fairness. There are actually two directions proposed by a16z: One is to resist censorship for a short period of time. As long as an honest node receives my transaction, I should quickly forward the block. Not 'maybe a few seconds later'. As soon as possible and predictable. Another is to hide before confirmation. Don't let the whole network see through my list first. Otherwise, if others decide how to fuck me hard after reading it, then it's nothing to play with. These two things cannot be repaired, DeFi is still more like an on chain amusement park. Can play. Can be fried. Can tinker. But it is still far from the real financial market. Don't be superstitious about TPS anymore. The most valuable thing in the financial market is never 'how many orders can you make in one second'. But rather: After you send it out, are the rules determined. Is the execution fair. If this matter is not resolved, DeFi will never be able to sustain a truly large market