StorjChain: overcoming the blockchain trilemma via decentralized storage and erasure-coded sharding

The blockchain trilemma-simultaneously achieving scalability, security, and decentralization-remains a persistent challenge in distributed systems. This study introduces StorjChain, a framework leveraging Storj's decentralized storage network (DSN) and Proof-of-Storage (PoS) consensus to resolve this trilemma. By fragmenting data into 256-byte shards distributed across 84 global nodes, StorjChain achieves 98.7% shard availability via erasure coding (29 data + 55 parity shards) and 3x\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\times $$\end{document} replication per shard while reducing on-chain metadata to 64 bytes per transaction. The system processes 980 transactions per second (TPS) with 1.2-second latency, demonstrating a chain quality score of 0.92 under 35% adversarial influence. StorjChain reduces storage costs by 76% compared to traditional blockchains, requiring only 192.3 GB for 867,541 blocks. Experimental analyses confirm its ability to harmonize scalability, security, and decentralization, setting a new standard for blockchain applications.