A lot of cryptocurrency enthusiasts are looking forward to seeing how all of the major cryptocurrencies will scale. Ethereum is of special interest, and it seems its developers are looking to introduce both Casper and sharding in the same major upgrade. That would certainly get a lot of people excited, for rather obvious reasons.
The Future of Ethereum Scaling
As with most other cryptocurrencies on the market today, it is evident there need to be proper scaling solutions for Ethereum. Although this network currently processes around 1 million transactions per day, it seems things are progressing nicely. Even so, there are a lot of changes on the horizon, by the look of things, which can only be considered a good thing.
Two of the main scaling proposals for Ethereum are sharding and Casper. For those who are unaware, Casper is the upgrade by which Ethereum will switch from proof-of-work to a hybrid PoW/PoS system, and eventually drop PoW altogether. Sharding, on the other hand, will allow for more concurrent transactions without causing much blockchain bloat. As such, a higher transaction throughput is expected to be achieved in the future.
Up until now, it seemed as if the Ethereum developers were intent on releasing both scaling solutions in succession. However, that plan may have changed. Various rumors are circulating on the internet as to how Ethereum developers will combine both sharding and Casper in the next major network upgrade. This will be made possible thanks to recent advancements in scaling research.
Moreover, the actual implementation of Casper may undergo some changes as well. Considering that the original plan was to introduce Casper in the form of a smart contract, a change may be more than warranted. The current plan of action seems to involve introducing Casper on a sidechain as part of the sharding concept. It’s an interesting idea which will certainly be appreciated by a lot of Ethereum users.
If the developers can make both solutions activate at the same time, Ethereum will – theoretically – be capable of scaling beyond most people’s wildest dreams. That in itself will be subject to a fair amount of speculation, mainly because it remains a bit unclear as to which type of scaling one can expect exactly. Any major scaling of Ethereum will be well-received, for rather obvious reasons.
The combination of both sharding and Casper will provide benefits to the developers as well. More specifically, a more streamlined approach to making Ethereum scale is something everyone will benefit from in the long run. Additionally, it will allow for faster future developments to optimize the technology and perhaps add new functionalities in the long run. An interesting future awaits Ethereum, regardless of how these scaling solutions are implemented in the end.