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 backgrounds
• Sharding and blockchain scalability
• Challenges of building a sharded blockchain
• Near namespace
• Shard security & validator sampling
• Stateless validation and data availability
• State witnesses and chunk producers
• Block production
• Shards vs. Rollups
• How Near could further improve
• Leaderless chunk production
• Chain abstraction

Episode links:

• Illia Polosukhin on Twitter
• Alex Skidanov on Twitter
• Near Protocol on Twitter

Sponsors:

• Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io
• Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Meher Roy.