What is Dynamic Blockchain Sharding?
Initially, blockchain and cryptocurrency were words synonymous with each other. However, it has expanded into a bigger ecosystem that leverages the potential of decentralization while also incorporating ledger and smart contract services into various applications. The need for scalability of the blockchain ecosystem is increasing as the scope of blockchain network applications is gaining popularity.
Modern #blockchains have emerged as the preferred technology for Web3, a decentralised platform for interactivity, by supporting decentralized applications (#Dapps). As Dapps are gaining popularity, it is increasingly difficult to allocate shard or subnetwork resources to meet the demand of each Dapp.
Unfortunately, most #sharding proposals are static because the blockchain ecosystem cannot modify shards on runtime. Since blockchains are projected to run indefinitely, these approaches are insufficient to meet the upcoming need. Dynamic blockchain sharding is a new and innovative way of creating and closing shards on-demand and real-time basis. Before discussing more details of dynamic blockchain sharding, let’s take a brief look at what blockchain sharding means.
What is sharding in blockchain technology?
The sharding mechanism separates #nodes into groups so that each node does not have to check the entire #chain. Initially, this strategy was developed to segment enormous databases into more manageable portions horizontally.
Let us take one example.
In a spreadsheet, if we slip the table vertically, each part would be irrelevant without the other. On the other hand, horizontal splitting would preserve each portion relevant in the absence of the other. It will simultaneously provide the whole picture when stitched back together. When #blockchain uses this notion, the chain’s structure is divided into portions known as shards.
This arrangement allows shards to confirm individual transactions more quickly while other blockchain nodes check the entire shard chain. Most cryptocurrency transactions occur in series, with one action occurring after the previous one has concluded.
Each stage is dependent on the prior phase’s performance. Sequential processing becomes impractically inefficient as the network’s size and the number of users rise.
Parallel processing is a far more practical option to address the issue of scalability. Sharding, which divides the blockchain into numerous sections and processes them in parallel, significantly increases the amount of computing the network can handle at once.
What is Dynamic Sharding?
Dynamic sharding is gaining wide adoption to overcome the current blockchain’s scalability issue. This shrading divides the #network into many disjoint groups while processing the transactions, resulting in a decline in computation, communication, and storage overhead.
Dynamic blockchain Sharding generates and closes shards when demand occurs and adjusts its size on a runtime basis without needing a hard fork. It simply means it does not create duplicated instances of the same blockchain. As the sharding process uses dedicated smart contract innovations, it ensures higher security of the sharding configuration. It also inherently provides transparency for other blockchain data.
Just like classic sharding, dynamic sharding protocol relies upon randomness to efficiently deal with shard-takeover attacks. It also uses rotating nodes for managing the bribery of a slowly-adaptive adversary.
Advantages of Dynamic Blockchain Sharding
With the adoption of Dynamic Sharding, the blockchain ecosystem can reconfigure the number and size of its shards without disrupting the blockchain service. This ability is particularly beneficial in tackling the issue of the rise in Dapps over the recent blockchain.
Dynamic sharding creates and adjusts a new shard, closes a shard, and rotates the shard participants. The adoption of transparent smart contracts replaces the current sharding configuration at the network level.
Final Thoughts: Dynamic blockchain sharding for a blockchain can change its sharding configuration on a real-time basis without a hard fork. Anyone can double-check reconfiguration effectiveness with transparent smart contracts.
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JumboBlockchain is the layer 1 blockchain protocol with three patents applied.
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