Sharding is a multi-phase upgrade to improve Ethereum’s scalability and capacity.
Shard chains spread the network's load across 64 new chains.
They make it easier to run a node by keeping hardware requirements low.
This upgrade is planned to follow the merge of Mainnet with the Beacon Chain.
With shard chains, validators only need to store/run data for the shard they're validating, not the entire network (like what happens today). This speeds things up and drastically reduces hardware requirements. Everyone can run a node.
Sharding will eventually let you run Ethereum on a personal laptop or phone. So more people should be able to participate, or run clients, in a sharded Ethereum.
This will increase security because the more decentralized the network, the smaller the attack surface area.
With lower hardware requirements, sharding will make it easier to run clients on your own, without relying on any intermediary services at all. And if you can, consider running multiple clients. This can help network health by further reducing points of failure.
1. State execution not needed
This would mean we don’t give shards the capability to handle smart contracts and leave them as data depots.
2. Have some execution shards
Perhaps there’s a compromise where we don’t need all shards (64 are planned right now) to be smarter. We could just add this functionality to a few and leave the rest. This could speed the delivery up.
3. Wait until we can do Zero Knowledge (ZK) snarks
Finally, perhaps we should revisit this debate when ZK snarks are firmed up. This is a technology that could help bring truly private transactions to the network. It’s likely that they’ll require smarter shards, but they’re still in research and development.
Shard Chains