Epicenter - Learn About Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin And Distributed Technologies

The initial scaling roadmap for Ethereum featured execution layer sharding. However, the rapid advancements of layer 2 scaling solutions in general, and zero knowledge proofs in particular, caused a restructuring of the original plan. The reason was that rollups would have required less changes made to Ethereum’s base layer, hence lower risks. On the other hand, Near Protocol was designed from the ground up as a sharded system, capable of withstanding billions of transactions simultaneously, without sacrificing decentralisation or security.Topics covered in this episode:Illia’s & Alex’s backgroundsSharding and blockchain scalabilityChallenges of building a sharded blockchainNear namespaceShard security & validator samplingStateless validation and data availabilityState witnesses and chunk producersBlock productionShards vs. RollupsHow Near could further improveLeaderless chunk productionChain abstractionEpisode links:Illia Polosukhin on TwitterAlex Skidanov on TwitterNear Protocol on TwitterSponsors:G