What is sharding, and why is it key to achieving the scalability and performance required for real-world blockchain applications, while maintaining decentralization and security?
MultiversX recently launched Sovereign Chains, a sharding solution with the potential to increase the transaction throughput of existing L2 blockchain networks by up to 100 times.
Beniamin Mincu, CEO & Co-founder, MultiversX, emphasized the necessity of sharding for scalability, with his tongue-in-cheek ‘Ben’s Scaling Law’. But what exactly is sharding, and why is it essential to blockchain applications and transactions today?
Ben’s Scaling Law states: “Any sufficiently advanced and scalable system – whether in nature, society, or computation – must by necessity be sharded.” Please explain.
Beniamin Mincu (BM): While the statement may be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, it highlights a fundamental truth about Web3 infrastructure: scalability is crucial for the long-term success of any technology. The main limitation of current systems is their inability to effectively scale as more users and resources are added.
Ben’s Scaling Law states: “Any sufficiently advanced and scalable system – whether in nature, society, or computation – must by necessity be sharded.” Please explain.
Beniamin Mincu (BM): While the statement may be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, it highlights a fundamental truth about Web3 infrastructure: scalability is crucial for the long-term success of any technology. The main limitation of current systems is their inability to effectively scale as more users and resources are added.
Currently, sharding is the most viable solution to this challenge. Building highly efficient, reliable, and secure systems requires the incorporation of sharding and parallelization, in a way that’s invisible to end users but essential for the system’s overall operation.
Understanding this is vital for anyone developing in the blockchain space or engaging in serious discussions about adoption. Sharding is key to achieving the scalability and performance required for real-world applications. I believe it’s necessary for the long-term viability of blockchains, as it helps prevent centralization and control by a few powerful entities.
While ongoing research and development are important, we’ve already made remarkable progress with MultiversX. Our unique implementation, called Adaptive State Sharding, integrates three types of sharding: network, transaction, and state sharding. This combination allows the network to dynamically adjust the number of shards based on demand, optimizing performance and resource allocation.
This innovation makes MultiversX highly efficient and a truly scalable sharding solution for Web3. Our technology is ready to support real-world decentralized applications, and as more users and resources join, our sharding system ensures the network can handle the influx without challenges.
How would blockchain networks, in their current state, handle the demand required for mass adoption? What makes sharding a necessity for blockchain technology to be adapted for mass adoption?
BM: For blockchain networks to achieve mass adoption, they must overcome current scalability limitations. Systems like Bitcoin and Ethereum, while groundbreaking at their time, are hindered by low throughput, leading to high fees and slow transactions, which are barriers to widespread use. To unlock blockchain’s full potential, scalability solutions like sharding are essential.
Sharding, as implemented by MultiversX, allows these smaller units — shards — to process transactions independently. This significantly boosts network capacity and can support millions of users and applications. MultiversX’s Adaptive State Sharding further optimizes this by dynamically adjusting the number of shards based on real-time demand, ensuring efficient resource use and high performance.
Without sharding, blockchain networks struggle to scale while maintaining decentralization and security. Sharding provides a critical balance between high performance and preserving the core values of blockchain, making it essential for mass adoption across real-world applications like DeFi and gaming. MultiversX leads this charge with scalable infrastructure ready to power a decentralized future.
What separates sharding technology from other scalability solutions in driving the adoption of blockchain solutions?
BM: I’m glad you brought this up. The same sharding technology that powers MultiversX’s scalability now forms the backbone of Sovereign Chains, our groundbreaking Layer 2 solution designed to unify all major blockchain networks. Unlike other scalability approaches, Sovereign Chains offer the flexibility and efficiency needed to meet the diverse demands of multiple ecosystems, such as Ethereum and Solana, by connecting them into a seamless, interoperable web of blockchains.
By leveraging sharding beyond just scaling a single network, Sovereign Chains eliminate the barriers of fragmentation. This allows for smooth, secure transactions across previously isolated networks, fundamentally changing how blockchain ecosystems interact and exchange value. The native cross-shard operations also remove the risks and complexities typically associated with traditional cross-chain bridges.
In addition to superior scalability, Sovereign Chains inherit MultiversX’s robust security, enabling new projects to launch quickly without the heavy investment usually required for security infrastructure. This shared security model, coupled with native interoperability, makes asset transfers fluid and secure.
Developers can also deploy multiple virtual machines, like Ethereum’s EVM and MultiversX’s native VM, on the same chain, enabling unparalleled cross-ecosystem collaboration. This versatility makes Sovereign Chains ideal for industries requiring both high performance and interoperability, driving blockchain adoption across DeFi, Web3 gaming, and beyond.
How can sharding ensure scalability without compromising interoperability?
BM: As I’ve mentioned already, when sharding is implemented effectively, as with MultiversX and Sovereign Chains, it enhances rather than compromises interoperability. Sovereign Chains use sharding to allow for a new level of cross-chain communication, enabling direct and seamless interactions between applications on different networks. This allows next-gen on-chain apps to perform in ways previously impossible.
Take Web3 gaming, for example. Currently, game developers face a tough choice between compromising on-chain performance or limiting the game’s reach to a single blockchain ecosystem. With Sovereign Chains, they can now deploy their game and have it seamlessly connected to multiple networks simultaneously while maintaining high performance. This approach boosts user adoption and enhanced interoperability and collaboration between previously siloed networks.
But that’s not all. Sovereign Chains can unify liquidity and streamline DeFi applications, improving efficiency across platforms while simplifying the user experience by removing the need for multiple gas tokens. This built-in interoperability supports secure, interconnected dApps, empowering developers to deploy high-performance, customizable blockchains across diverse sectors like finance, social media, real world assets, entertainment services, and others.
To sum up, sharding is essential to achieving scalability while preserving the fundamental principles of decentralization and security. When coupled with interoperability, as MultiversX and Sovereign Chains demonstrate, sharding is truly a game changer for blockchain technology and its widespread adoption.
