Wazir X founder Nischal Shetty and blockchain architect Omar Syed have launched a new platform web 3.0 called Shardeum, which has been built to tackle one of the fundamental problems of web 3.0 platforms — scaling. Web 3.0 refers to the third generation of the Internet, which is mainly built using blockchain technology and is powered by cryptocurrencies.
According to Shetty, blockchain scalability is one of the biggest barriers to crypto adoption as existing infrastructure is slow and expensive. He isn’t the only one who thinks so either. Platforms like Algorand have been built in order to solve scaling issues in existing ones like Ethereum and Bitcoin.
The rapid growth in user base on all major blockchain networks has made them slower due to network congestion, which in turn makes them expensive to sustain. Scaling issues can either arise because of storage concerns, or because of fees (called gas fees) attached to cryptocurrency transactions.
Unlike storage networks on web 2.0, like Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud, web 3.0 platforms are decentralized and data is replicated in many locations, which leads to scaling troubles.
Shardeum claims to address this issue using a method called sharding, which distributes the processing load of the blockchain by breaking it into smaller segments called shards. Nodes will only have to validate data on individual shards instead of validating every piece of data on the network. This is supposed to reduce a node’s workload, and in turn network congestion. Which results in increased transactions per second.
To be sure, Shetty and Syed’s platform isn’t the only one that’s exploring sharding. In fact, sharding has been proposed as an additional feature for upcoming versions of the Ethereum platform as well. Ethereum 2.0 is supposed to split the network load across 64 shards, though sharding may not come to that network till next year.
Shetty claimed that implementing sharding on Ethereum may not be as easy as expected, since moving a non-sharded network to one that is sharded may be difficult. “Changing an existing network is going to be a very long drawn process. That is why when Ehereum will start sharding, they’ll also have a limited number of shards,” he said, adding that Sharedeum is built specifically with sharding as a starting point, and will have unlimited shards.
Shetty said that the need for more nodes on the network will increase as the number of users increase. More shards will be created as more nodes join the network, and transactions per second will also improve accordingly.
The company will also launch an utility token called SHARD ($SHM), which will also be used as a reward for validating and running decentralized apps (dapps). Shetty said that the low transaction fees and immediate finality in processing transactions could make Shardeum an appealing proposition in emerging markets like India and Brazil where crypto trading has soared recently.
Shardeum’s first version — Alphanet — is expected to launch in April 2022, which will be followed by a second version, called Betanet in the third quarter of 2022. The mainnet, which is the final version, will launch at the end of 2022. The whitepaper for the project will be released soon, said Shetty.
He also said that Shardeum will take a “community first” approach, much like other web 3.0 platforms today. “We are going to be building openly, which is why we have not raised any funds yet,” he said. “We wanted to first open up the project and bring the community. We will be selling minorities to the investors while the majority will be actual for the community in terms of mining and air drops,” he added.
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