According to online news sources, the CEO and founder of the Indian cryptocurrency exchange platform, Nischal Shetty, has reportedly unveiled a new blockchain project called Shardeum. This new blockchain, which is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, was released on 2 February 2022. Nischal Shetty has collaborated with a former engineer of NASA, Omar Syed, to build the Shardeum blockchain using the technique of sharding. Through this ambitious blockchain project, WazirX plans to create a blockchain that will be infinitely scalable and will benefit billions of users.
In an interview soon after the launch, Nischal Shetty explained the unique advantages offered by Shardeum. He said that the layer of Shardeum’s base protocol has already been built, and now the company is looking to develop the smart contract platform. The base protocol has been built by Omar Syed, who works as a blockchain architect on Shardus.
As per the online reports, the Shardeum Alphanet is going to be launched sometime around April, while the Betanet will be launched by the end of the third quarter of 2022. Finally, the company is planning to launch the Mainnet by the end of the fourth quarter of 2022.
What is Sharding?
Sharding is a technique that helps in breaking down the blockchain infrastructure in the form of smaller pieces. This is great for scaling the network and increasing the space of the blockchain so that more transactions can take place. Sharding also helps in reducing the gas fees. Many blockchain networks like NEAR, Ethereum 2.0, Zilliqa, and HarmonyOne are also working to implement/have implemented the technique of sharding.
