Sharding Could Solve Ethereum's Scalability Trilemma, Researcher Says

The scalability trilemma implies that to scale, blockchains typically must sacrifice one of their three fundamental cornerstones: security or decentralization, or transaction throughput. Interview

After a successful Ethereum merger, all eyes are on the next phase of transition which would introduce key scalability solutions to the platform, including sharding. Market experts believe that sharding would be a game-changer for the Ethereum network as it could potentially solve the scalability trilemma.

In an exclusive conversation with Cointelegraph, Uphold's Head of Research Dr. Martin Hiesboeck discussed how sharding could pave the way for Ethereum to become a truly global network.

Hiesboeck thinks sharding could eventually solve the long-standing scalability trilemma of blockchain networks. The scalability trilemma implies that in order to scale, blockchains usually have to sacrifice one of their three fundamental cornerstones – security or decentralization, the third being scalability itself. He explained:

"Sharding is indeed one of the most effective and universal ways to solve the so-called 'scalability trilemma'. Not sure that's enough to proclaim it the only real scalability solution , but sharding is certainly among the best we have at the moment.".

Simply put, sharding would introduce parallel processing, enabling secure distribution of data storage needs and making it easier to operate nodes. In the current blockchain processing system, transactions are processed one block at a time, while with the introduction of sharding, the network can process multiple blocks of transactions simultaneously.

Using this mechanism, validators that verify certain blocks will post signatures attesting that they have done so. Meanwhile, everyone will only have to verify 10,000 such signatures instead of 100 full blocks, which is a significantly lower amount of work.