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Crypto Terms:  Letter A
Jul 07, 2023 |
updated: Apr 08, 2024

What is Adaptive State Sharding?

Adaptive State Sharding Meaning:
Adaptive State Sharding - a sharding method used by Elrond that combines aspects of state, transactions, and network sharding.
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Let's find out Adaptive State Sharding meaning, definition in crypto, what is Adaptive State Sharding, and all other detailed facts.

Sharding is a process of splitting blockchain states into partitions. The partition happens horizontally in a database or search engine. The term sharding refers to splitting data into smaller pieces. These data chunks can then be stored on different machines and are horizontally scalable.

There are three types of sharding: state, transactions, and network. The Elrond network combines all three types of blockchain sharding. The Elrond-specific sharding process is known as adaptive state sharding.

Adaptive state sharding combines elements of all three sharding methods to create the optimal process for the Elrond network. The final result allows for parallel processing, which improves the inner communication of the shards, and can enhance the overall performance.

Blockchain technology encounters scalability issues for some applications, such as banking, supply chain management (SCM), and Big Data. With the help of adaptive state sharding, blockchains can improve the throughput and scalability performance.

Although sharding is not a new process, previous iterations have not provided the scalability required for blockchain adoption. The development of blockchain technology and smart contracts allows processing transactions, blocks, and other data into shards so that they can be easily processed by nodes even without sufficient resources.

Adaptive sharding used by Elrond is a horizontal scaling database partitioning technique. It allows data to be automatically transferred across servers as the system load increases and decreases.

When it comes to networks, sharding helps distribute nodes into segments. This occurs at the transaction level, while the whole blockchain is retained by the sum of the nodes. Sharding at the state level allows for the processing and verification of multiple transactions simultaneously.

With dynamic adaptive state sharding, a fluctuating number of nodes can be adapted. This process occurs without compromising the network’s decentralization and security.

The adaptive state sharding model that Elrond uses provides a new approach to the process. It has demonstrated heightened security and throughput, and delays have been reduced compared to older sharding methods.