Will Phore Sharding Compromise Security for speed? An Overview of How Phore Intends to Implement ETH 2.0 Sharding (Part 2)
Having taken a deep dive into the basics of Sharding in the previous article, we took time to examine the major bottlenecks inhibiting the drive of the entire crypto space towards mass adoption, we looked at why Sharding holds so much potential, and the trilemma (scalability, security, and decentralization) faced and the possible vulnerability. Before we go in the imminent security threats Sharding might create and how Phore developers intend to tackle it. Let’s talk about some of the major benefits of the implementation of this innovation.
Advantages of Sharding
One of the advantages is that information/transactions can securely be processed away from the main blockchain, this means that transactions wouldn’t have to queue up eventually leading to the possibility of a network clogging. The main benefit here is that the throughput is significantly increased since multiple transactions can be executed in parallel.
If Phore can successfully pull off Sharding and solve the issue of scalability without compromising other fundamental operational pillars, it would be a major milestone not just for Phore and it’s community but for blockchain technology, as this would successfully mean that the creation of ETH 2.0 would be recorded as the most effective real attempt at breaking this trilemma faced in blockchain. The inherent advantage is that blockchain technology, in general, is given a strong push towards mainstream adoption.
What are its possible drawbacks
One of the main potential drawbacks is that it opens the POW-based network for blockchains such as Ethereum — which is also working on implementing the same technology- to attacks in the form of single-shard take over ( or a 51% attack). For this to happen it means that an attacker or group of attackers can focus their hash power on asking shard and take it over, causing it to produce invalid collations, and since there is a cross-shard communication in place it causes other shards to become vulnerable.
A solution to this possible security threat
At this point, transitioning into proof of stake successfully takes care of the problem through a method called “random sampling” meaning that the attackers won’t know which shard will be assigned to them in advance this further reducing the possibility of having an event like this occur by a lot as it would require more computational resources and sheer luck to be able to pull off an attack.
The Phore Dev team is always at work, ensuring that there is constant work being done to ensure that the platform evolves to match if not surpass its competitors. From coincodecap website we could see proof indicating the high level of activity recorded by Phore developers, the report from the website is proof that the team has a lot of value in store for the community.
What does the future hold for Sharding
For the time being, we can say that Sharding is still in its infancy stage and its future is also connected with other developments such as the transitioning of Ethereum from proof of work to proof of stake.
Superquadratic Sharding is also another branch of Sharding to look out for, this breed of Sharding is a system created from shards of shards and this could theoretically scale to millions of tx/s.
The introduction of Sharding into the world of blockchain might as well have been the solution to the lingering problem of scalability the industry has been facing, however things eventually go it is already clear that there is light at the end of the tunnel. All we have to do is keep our fingers crossed, anticipate and position ourselves as this would be an innovation that would touch the very core of blockchain as we know it.
For more information about Phore blockchain the following links are at your disposal.
