Ethereum's Vlad Zamfir Claims Breakthrough In Blockchain Sharding

Ethereum might just be one step closer to sharding its blockchain.

At least that's according to long-time blockchain researcher Vlad Zamfir, who claims to have coded up a successful proof-of-concept of the idea at the ethereum hackathon EthBerlin this week.

Built with the help of several other developers, including Tim Beiko and John Marling, the code is said to demonstrate how different ethereum shards may be able to someday communicate on the blockchain.

Stepping back, sharding is an experimental scaling solution touted as a way to alleviate the strain of a growing network by breaking the blockchain up into smaller units, called shards.

"It's really a proof-of-concept of the most core component in my sharding roadmap," Zamfir said.

What Zamfir is referring to when he says "Fork choice rule" is the code for how ethereum shards interact with the main blockchain.

With this focus, Zamfir's sharding roadmap deviates slightly from the mainstream ethereum sharding roadmap, fulfilling "Different design criteria," he said.

While it's still rooted in the same problems - trying to come up with ways to solve ethereum's scaling hurdles, as well as finalizing the upcoming switch to a more egalitarian way to secure blockchains, named proof-of-stake - Zamfir has a different design focus to others looking at sharding.

"I consider the core of sharding to be a cross-shard message or a cross-shard consistency problem," Zamfir told CoinDesk.

"Vitalik thinks of it as sharding of availability, validity and execution of the state. I have a different perspective than Vitalik does of consensus protocols and therefore also sharding."