Towards a New Distributed Public Mesh


Public blockchains promised trustless freedom, but 2025–2026 delivered a harsh reality check: over $17B lost to hacks in 2025 alone (Chainalysis) major drains like Bybit's $1.5B exploit, persistent Solana congestion, Ethereum gas volatility, and scams totaling $14B driven by key thefts and protocol flaws. These aren't isolated bugs, they're systemic consequences of overexposed, monolithic designs where every participant shares the same attack surface.

Are Public Networks Doomed?

As I write this, the crypto markets are crashing hard. This stresses the high volatility of the crypto markets once again. Let's face it, after more than a decade, crypto hasn't truly managed to break out of the investment and gaming niche. Economic use cases are rare, which isn't surprising given the aforementioned problems. This seems to indicate that public networks are doomed to fail. However, the core question is: Do we abandon blockchain's strengths: immutability, verifiable sequencing, cryptographic auditability - all genuine virtues - because public networks keep failing? Or do we rethink decentralization entirely?

The Paradox

Through public networks we seek connectivity and autonomy, autonomy for providers to innovate freely and for users to own their data and choices. The network seals it but has proven to come with vulnerabilities and limitations. Enterprises also seek connectivity and autonomy, however, they also seek stability and control, something public networks cannot offer at the moment. Enterprises have to balance this paradox and behind their firewall they already have a sense of autonomy, so the added value of public networks right now simply does not outweigh the risks and drawbacks.

Flipping the paradigm

In order to make public networks interesting for companies a paradigm shift is needed. We can do this by completely flipping the script. Rather than forcing applications onto vulnerable public chains, we embed blockchain *inside* the application. Local, private blockchains run with event-based replicas that hold the application state in memory. This gives the company all the benefits of blockchain while being fully in control. Any failure of the leader node is a software bug, not an outward vulnerability. Local control unleashes custom logic while slashing the risks. But standalone applications are not public networks.

Shaping the new public network

Connectivity comes from entering the Public Replica, a carefully designed extension that decouples external visibility from the internal core:

  • Only events with a need to share (e.g. wallet-to-wallet transactions, public data) are transmitted to public replicas (read-only nodes).
  • No full state or sensitive internal logic is exposed. This prevents data duplication and eliminates mismatch risks, now on a larger scale.
  • Replicas validate cryptographic signatures and event formats, then derive their own in-memory global views (balances, ownership histories, etc.) purely from received events, which means no costly re-execution is required.

This creates a lightweight, horizontal-scaling read layer. Users connect via standard wallets (MetaMask-style, non-custodial by default, but not strictly necessary), signing intents that the local application executes atomically before gossiping successful, signed results. The public replica network gossips only validated outcomes, building a shared, tamper-evident history without a single bloated chain.

A mesh of autonomous nodes

The result resembles a true mesh of autonomous nodes rather than silos or a fragile monolith:

  • Local bugs stay isolated, no cascade failures like public-chain exploits.
  • Providers retain full control over their logic and upgrades.
  • Users gain real ownership: revoke access instantly, community signals can blacklist bad actors.
  • Scalability is unbound: add replicas freely for reads; snapshots (hashed on-ledger every N events) enable fast sync/recovery and tamper detection via simple peer quorum (Raft-inspired).

Decentralization at its best

Sceptics might argue this isn't "true" decentralization. Yet today's public networks offer only the illusion: users still trust audited contracts that fail spectacularly, validators centralize power, and publicity amplifies every vulnerability. In contrast, this model evolves decentralization: autonomous instances linked selectively via cryptographic proofs and user-governed bridges. It's responsibility where it belongs: with providers and users, not diffused across untrusted participants.

Conclusion

Refinements are still needed: governance models, sharding for massive scale, zero-knowledge proofs for privacy-preserving verification, but the direction is clear. By starting private and extending outward only as required, Chain Solutions sidesteps public-network pitfalls while unlocking blockchain's real promise: fast, auditable, user-centric systems that escape the gambling/investment niche and power everyday value exchange.

The future isn't bigger public chains, it's smarter, more resilient meshes where decentralization serves people, not the other way around.