Do you actually need a blockchain?
A database is cheaper, faster, and simpler. Here is the short checklist for when a chain is genuinely worth it.
Hammad Iqbal
Software Engineer
After working with Web3 tools, the most useful question I have learned to ask is the unfashionable one: could a normal database do this? Very often it can. A blockchain earns its cost only in a narrow set of situations.
- Use a chain when several parties who do not trust each other need one shared record.
- Use a chain when no single operator should be able to change the rules or the history.
- Otherwise a database with good access control is the better tool.
The costs are real
Writes are slower and cost fees, data is public by default, mistakes are hard to undo, and users need a wallet. Each of those is a real product cost, so there should be a clear reason to accept them.
When it genuinely helps
In these cases removing the trusted middle is the product, and that is something a database cannot offer.
- Funds held by rules, not by a company, as in crowdfunding or escrow
- Records several competing parties must trust without trusting each other
- Assets that need to move between apps without anyone's permission
The hybrid answer
Most good Web3 apps are hybrids: money and ownership rules on-chain, everything else, such as profiles, images, search, and notifications, in an ordinary backend. Use the chain for the part that needs trustlessness, and nothing more.
Reach for a blockchain only when removing a trusted middleman is the point, and use normal tools for everything else.
Have a project this kind of thinking applies to?
Tell me what you're building — I read every message myself.