XChain's design follows from one principle and six corollaries. The principle is verify, don't re-execute: an upper layer confirms a proof that a lower layer did its work correctly, rather than re-running it. This is what makes planetary scale thinkable.

#	Principle	What it means
1	Aggregate, not global	Large capacity is aggregate nominal throughput, never one synchronous global state.
2	Locality-first	Over 99% of activity should stay local; placing state correctly is job one.
3	Assurance ∝ value	A transaction's security, data availability and proof scale with what it is worth.
4	Verify, don't re-execute	The layer above checks an aggregated proof instead of re-running the work.
5	A narrow waist	The core stays small and hard-defined; the space to build above it is unbounded.
6	Prune by default	Low-value data expires; only the commitment is permanent; every chain pays its own way.

Takeaway: every corollary serves one goal — let most of the world's volume travel a near-free path, while value and atomicity concentrate in the small, most-protected core. Scale and safety stop fighting each other.