X @Nick Szabo

Core Principles of Layer 1 (L1) Blockchain Design - L1 should prioritize minimalism and economic disincentives against abuse, including tight data limits, escalating fees, and predictable pruning, treating each extra byte as a systemic liability [1] - L1 should focus on cash-grade facts only, such as UTXOs, signatures, fees, and block headers, excluding galleries, blobs, and politics [4] - L1's primary functions are finality and fungibility [5] Risk Management and Sovereignty - The industry should consider legal entropy per byte, which compounds across borders, necessitating near-zero jurisdiction-adjusted entropy on L1 to maintain composable sovereignty [2] - Chains that invite arbitrary payloads are fragilized, as one illicit file can chill an entire network, while one clean invariant allows permissionless value transfer [2] Layered Architecture and Functionality - The industry advocates separating concerns, making the settlement layer surgically narrow, rather than stuffing speech into money [3] - Expression should be pushed outward, with contracts to L2, content to content-nets (Nostr/IPFS/etc), and proofs back to L1 [4] - L2 should focus on programmability, while L3 should handle content and culture [5]