Blockchain Sharding: Theory and Practice provides a comprehensive exploration of one of the most promising scalability solutions for blockchain systems. This book bridges the gap between foundational theories and real-world implementations, offering an in-depth analysis of how sharding enhances blockchain performance, security, and efficiency. Readers will gain a holistic understanding of the technology, from its fundamental principles to cutting-edge advancements, making it an essential resource for researchers and practitioners alike.
As blockchain adoption grows, scalability remains a critical challenge. Sharding addresses this by partitioning the blockchain into smaller, parallel-processed shardsyet it introduces complexities such as cross-shard transactions, security risks, and workload distribution. This book consolidates the latest research, innovative protocols, and practical solutions to these challenges, serving as a vital reference for the academic and developer communities. Key topics include cross-shard transaction handling, dynamic shard reconfiguration, workload balancing, and real-world applications in decentralized finance (DeFi).
Designed for researchers, engineers, and students in blockchain and distributed systems, this book equips readers with both theoretical insights and hands-on knowledge. It covers advanced techniques such as broker-based sharding, incentive mechanisms, and experimental tools like BlockEmulator for protocol validation. Whether you aim to deepen your expertise or implement sharding in practice, this book provides the necessary foundations, methodologies, and case studies to drive innovation in scalable blockchain systems. A basic understanding of blockchain fundamentals and distributed computing is recommended for optimal engagement.
Chapter
1. Fundamentals of Blockchain Sharding.
Chapter
2. BrokerChain:
A Cross-shard Protocol.
Chapter
3. Committee Scheduling for Blockchain
Sharding.
Chapter
4. Fairness of Cross-shard Transactions.
Chapter
5.
Workload Balancing for Blockchain Sharding.
Chapter
6. Shard Reconfiguration
for Blockchain Sharding.
Chapter
7. Account Migration for Blockchain
Sharding.
Chapter
8. BlockEmulator: An Experimental Tool for Blockchain
Sharding.
Chapter
9. Broker2Earn: A DeFi Protocol Embedded in A Sharding
Blockchain.
Chapter
10. BrokerFi: A DeFi Application built on A Sharding
Blockchain.
Huawei Huang (Senior Member, IEEE) is a professor at Sun Yat-Sen University, China. His research interests include blockchain, Web3, decentralized finance (DeFi), distributed computing systems, and computer networks. He has been recognized in the world rankings of top 2% scientists for career-long impact since 2023. He served as a lead guest editor for blockchain special issues at IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, IEEE OJ-CS, and IET Blockchain. He also served as chair or TPC member for some blockchain conferences or symposiums such as IEEE ICDCS, ICWS, VTC Fall, BlockSys, IEEE GBC24, etc. He is the editor of multiple journals such as Wiley ETT, ELSP Blockchain, Fintech and Sustainability Innovation (FSI), etc. He is a senior member of IEEE.
Zibin Zheng (Fellow, IEEE) is the Dean of the School of Software Engineering at Sun Yat-sen University, China. He is an IEEE Fellow, an IET Fellow, an ACM Distinguished Scientist, the deputy director of the National Digital Home Engineering Technology Research Center, and the director of the Guangdong Blockchain Engineering Technology Research Center. He has published many papers, with more than 40,000 Google Scholar citations. He is a principal investigator of many projects, including the National Key R&D Project and the Natural Science Foundation Key Project. He has won the Second Prize of Natural Science of the Ministry of Education, the Second Prize of Natural Science of Wu Wenjun Artificial Intelligence, and the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award. His research interests include trusted large models, blockchain, Web3, and software reliability.
Song Guo (FCAE, MAE, FIEEE, FAAIA) is a Chair Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). He also holds a Changjiang Chair Professorship awarded by the Ministry of Education of China. His research interests are mainly in edge AI, AI4Science, and distributed systems. As a Highly Cited Researcher (Clarivate Web of Science), he published many papers in top venues with wide impact in these areas and received over a dozen Best Paper Awards from IEEE/ACM conferences, journals and technical committees. He is also the recipient of Edward J. McCluskey Technical Achievement Award in 2024, First Prize in Natural Science (China Electronics Society) in 2023, Gold Medal of Geneva Inventions Expo in 2024 & 2023, etc. He has also served as chair of organizing and technical committees of numerous IEEE/ACM conferences, workshops and symposia. He delivered more than 100 keynote addresses. He is the Secretary General of China Computer Federation (CCF) Hong Kong.
