Shard Chain

What Is a Shard Chain?

A shard chain, which is a sub-blockchain of the main Ethereum blockchain network, facilitates transactions. Each shard chain has its own unique smart contracts and account balances, and operates independently. However, transactions are still secured by the main Ethereum blockchain.

This database partitioning strategy aims to solve the common challenges associated with the Ethereum blockchain network. Primarily, it’s meant to help process transactions more quickly, easing the blockchain network’s congestion problems.

What Is Sharding?

Sharding refers to the process of merging a subset of a blockchain’s nodes to form a shard chain. The nodes' primary role is to facilitate transactions, and the transaction verification process is done in parallel with the main Ethereum blockchain. Therefore, the chances of security breaches are reduced to almost nil, since the Ethereum blockchain network is tamper-proof.