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A rather new blockchain technology — sharding — is gaining ground despite still being under development. Sharding, a technique designed to scale blockchain networks, offers several advantages in terms of speed, precision, and security.
By dividing the blockchain into smaller, more manageable ‘shards’ it increases the transactional throughput, reduces latency, improves consensus, and allows organizations to scale more easily.
One of the most active companies in sharding is MultiversX ($EGLD). Recently, the analytics firm Santiment said that MultiveseX leads the top ten gaming projects by development.
Today we speak to Beniamin Mincu, CEO & co-founder of MultiversX, to understand the technology behind MultiversX and its goals for the future.
Key Takeaways
- Sharding is a promising solution for scaling blockchain networks. It offers significant advantages in terms of speed, precision, and security by dividing the blockchain into smaller, more manageable shards.
- MultiversX’s approach to sharding, including Adaptive State Sharding, has enabled it to achieve high transaction throughput and scalability.
- From financial services to healthcare and supply chain management, sharding can enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and improve data management.
What is MultiversX?
Activity on MultiversX (formerly known as Elrond or $EGLD) has been rising steadily since mid-2024. Santiment reported that the layer-1 blockchain dominates the crypto gaming sector in terms of development.
As Beniamin Mincu told us:
“Our focus is on pushing the boundaries of blockchain innovation by advancing scalability, security, and interoperability.
“Having pioneered execution sharding, on-chain 2FA, among others, we’re now working to extend these technological breakthroughs beyond our ecosystem to benefit the entire Web3 landscape, via Sovereign Chains.”
MultiversX’s primary goal is to create the first unified Web3 ecosystem that connects assets, properties, and functionalities across multiple chains.
By eliminating the limitations of isolated networks, the company hopes to empower both builders in an interconnected blockchain future.
“By breaking down the barriers of siloed chains, we are creating an interconnected blockchain world where Web3 developers and users can benefit from the strengths of different ecosystems, while still enjoying the security, decentralization, and customization of their own Sovereign Chains.”
MultiversX Opens Up On Its Unique Layer 1 Tech
Mincu from MultiversX walked us through their layer 1 blockchain, which is designed to overcome the limitations of traditional blockchains, especially scalability and transaction speed.
“We are talking about a next-generation blockchain platform designed for scalability, high throughput, and interoperability.”
Mincu spoke about the role that innovative technologies like Adaptive State Sharding have in this next-gen blockchain.
“Simply put, Adaptive State Sharding is a key feature of our network that allows us to enhance scalability by dynamically adjusting the number of shards —? smaller partitions of the network — based on network demand,” Mincus said.
Adaptive State Sharding allows MultiversX to efficiently process up to 100,000 transactions per second by distributing the workload across multiple shards. To put this into extreme perspective, we can take Bitcoin, for example, which only has an average of 7 transactions per second (TPS).
Parallel data is the key to scalability in the MultiversX blockchain. The system processes transactions, network state, and data distribution in parallel, ensuring performance without sacrificing decentralization or security.
Mincu, the CEO of MultiversX told Techopedia that over 8,000 apps have already been deployed in the company’s infrastructure. Mincu added that TPS and other capabilities of their tech also provide significant cost savings to developers.
“We have proved the cost-efficient, carbon-negative, and high-performance potential of our architecture for builders across GameFi, RWA, DeFi, tokenization, and beyond.”
Web3 Scalability to Go Beyond
Mincu is responsible for the company’s foray into building scalable L1 solutions, focusing on areas of cross-chain security and interoperability, asset tokenization, and sovereign chains.
Mincu told Techopedia that, in practice, they can add new shards when demand is required without impacting the stability or security of their infrastructure.
“Not only does our current setup, with three shards, allow us to deliver 100K TPS, but we can scale and expand even beyond this threshold.”
Mincu added that the applications of sharding spill over into the real world as well.
“Beyond the existing ecosystem of marketplaces, DeFi, gaming, and more, we envision a future where Real World Assets (RWA) play a pivotal role.”
“By tokenizing assets like real estate, vehicles, or intellectual property, we can unlock new opportunities for liquidity, fractional ownership, and innovative financial products.”
The Bottom Line
Sharding tech is one of those things that both traditional centralized economy firms and web3 entrepreneurs seem to love. But, the sharding journey is not an easy one. Managing throughput against security and sustaining the integrity of decentralization are inherent risks that cannot be avoided.
While the growth of the blockchain has created real value, that same growth today worries experts. Can the blockchain scale to meet global needs? Sharding, which is already in play and playing hard, may be the answer to that long unanswered question.
