Dramatic improvements to Ethereum’s transaction processing throughput might be closer than previously thought, according to recent social media hints from Vitalik Buterin.
"Sharding is coming," wrote[1] Vitalik Buterin in a three-word tweet yesterday that received nearly 2,000 retweets and over 4,000 likes as of press time.
The creator of Ethereum included a hyperlink[2] to a newly consolidated GitHub code repository containing proofs-of-concepts for sharding's new fork choice rule, including research files containing four related Python implementation scripts. A fork choice rule is essentially a mechanism that lets nodes identify the canonical chain in the event of a fork.
The social media posting is Buterin's latest in recent weeks[3] to inform the ecosystem of forthcoming changes to the functionality of the Ethereum blockchain. Designed to massively improve transaction speeds, sharding uses "shard chains" – or blockchains attached to the main Ethereum chain – so that the main Ethereum chain can run faster.
As stated[4] by the Ethereum developers, "the primary goal is a massive scalability improvement," to which Buterin added yesterday in his informal – yet highly useful[5] – tweet storm: "The overriding principle is 'get maximally close to equivalent properties to a single chain.'"
Sharding is one of Ethereum's oldest milestones still left uncrossed and was recognized as one of the most promising second layer[6] solutions to scaling[7] the blockchain.
"I would not say the spec is finalized at this point," wrote[8] Buterin, "though the 'bag of ideas' is [in my opinion] pretty well-established. The latest research consists of combining together existing ideas about scaling and latency (i.e., block time) reduction.
ETHNews will continue to monitor sharding developments.
Jordan Daniell is a full-time staff writer
