What is Sharding? Check out the meaning and benefits

Have you ever heard of the term sharding in blockchain? Learn more about what sharding is, the benefits and other impacts of sharding on this occasion.

Understanding Sharding

Sharding is a method of breaking down a blockchain (or any other type of database) into smaller, partitioned blockchains that manage specific segments of data.

This setup reduces the burden of a single chain handling all transactions and interactions on the network. Each partitioned blockchain is known as a shard and has a dedicated ledger.

These shards can process their own transactions, but the beacon blockchain or main chain manages interactions between shards. This makes sharding a Layer 1 network of increased scalability, as it is a change to the mainnet of a blockchain.

Shard implementations offer much greater scalability than using a single network.

Ethereum developers introduced sharding during the process of upgrading Ethereum to a scalable Proof of Stake network.

For example in Ethereum, the Beacon Chain will coordinate 64 individual shards. The original Ethereum Proof of Work chain will merge with the Beacon Proof of Stake chain, and sharding will come later.

Advantages of Sharding

One of the advantages of sharding in a network is the ease and accessibility of running nodes . Since network data is shared between shards, it is no longer necessary for validator nodes to store the entire history of the blockchain. Instead, validators only need to store data integrity confirmations.

Networks without sharding often use rollups to improve scalability. It moves transactions off-chain and packages them together to be validated on the main chain. 

So, while sharding may seem like a competitor to rollups, it actually makes them more efficient. Rollups in a sharded network will be able to report their status more efficiently, increasing their speed.

The main concern with sharding is the possibility of malicious actors taking over a shard. These shards can then negatively impact other parts of the network.

Without proper maintenance and rules, the task of taking over a shard is more achievable than taking over an entire unsharded network.

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