Question 9 - 312-82 discussion

Sharding is a scalability technique that splits tasks or data into smaller, more manageable pieces called 'shards.' These shards are then processed in parallel by multiple nodes in a network. By dividing the workload, sharding can significantly enhance the efficiency and speed of blockchain networks, which is especially beneficial for handling large transaction volumes and complex computations.

Key Details:

Purpose of Sharding: The main goal of sharding is to address blockchain scalability issues. By enabling the network to process transactions and data in parallel, it reduces the load on individual nodes, thus increasing the overall throughput of the blockchain.

How Sharding Works: In a sharded blockchain, each node only needs to process a portion of the total data rather than every single transaction on the network. Each shard is responsible for a subset of data and transactions, and only nodes within a particular shard need to validate its transactions.

Relevance in Blockchain: Sharding is crucial in large-scale blockchain networks like Ethereum, where high transaction volumes can lead to congestion. Ethereum 2.0, for example, incorporates sharding as a core feature to improve its scalability and transaction processing capacity.

Sharding is, therefore, the correct answer, as it directly refers to the method of dividing tasks for parallel processing in a distributed environment.