— New upgrade will introduce “Chunk-only producers”.
— Upgrade to further decentralize the network.
— More upgrades are planned for 2023.
Near Protocol is set to launch the second phase of Nightshade Sharding that will introduce the “Chunk-only producers” to further decentralize the network.
The Nightshade Sharding project was introduced to expand the network capacity at a point when it was barely using a significant percentage of the network’s capacity.
Once initiate, the Sharding Phase 1 (second stage) is expected to be fully implemented before the end of September 2022.
Sharding is a process that splits the network of a blockchain into smaller parts called shards. The essence of sharding is to share the computational and storage workload of the network across nodes. This in turn makes validation faster and more transactions are done in less time.
Near Protocol is a layer 1 network launched to fast-track the adoption of blockchain technology. Sharding is one of the elements the team plans to use to make the network suitable for building dApps.
The first of the four stages also known as Phase 0 of Nightshade Sharding of the Near Protocol was launched on November 15, 2021. By stage three, Phase 2, the Nightshade Sharding will be fully implemented in both state and processing.
Four stages of the Nightshade Sharding
The Nightshade Sharding has four phases namely – Phase 0, Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3.
Phase 0 initiated the splitting of the Near network into four shards or parts. However, validators are still in charge of validating transactions on the network.
In Phase 1, which is expected in September 2022, “Chunk-Only Producers” will be integrated into the Near protocol. “Chunk-Only Producers” is a “role for those who may not have the NEAR required to run a validator node”.
Anyone can be a validator with a system of 8GB of RAM, 4-Core CPU, and 200 GB SSD of storage. Between 250 to 400 Chunk-Only Producers are expected to join as validators.
Phase 2, which is the third stage, will be launched in 2023. Once it’s released, validators will not be required to track all the shards in the network in the course of validating transactions. Thus, becoming a validator will be much easier.
The last stage, Phase 3, will be launched in 2023 as well. Via Dynamic Resharding, the network will split into shards and then merge according to how resources are used. At this point, Near is expected to be super scalable, and fast.
The Near Protocol is changing into a faster and more secured network with the Sharding phases implemented. In face of a growing and highly innovative and dynamic industry, the Near Protocol is building a highly scalable and developer-attractive network to build products with unparalleled experiences
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