Over a decade, the digital environment has far experienced a tremendously improvement and diverse structure in functionality, inflow of good brains hence significantly changing the face of global economy. A key factor in widespread is undoubtedly the digital Messiah — Blockchain technology as I would always tag it.Blockchain technology is well known, embraced and saluted for its immutability, secure and robust nature compared to the earlier style of computing. Bitcoin, Ethereum others are applications built on blockchains perhaps their functionalities and survival rely absolutely on earlier blockchain architecture (s). Bitcoin as the forerunner in cryptospace, till now has been recorded with achieving 3–7 transaction per sec (trnx/s) while Ethereum with about 12–30 trnx/s. Comparatively, they seem to be performing quite lower than MasterCard and Visa as payment merchants. Why? I’ll explain below. However, there is a a blockchain that performs better scaling up to 10000 Trxn/s (Elrond)

Issues Impeding Blockchain Mainstream Adoption

Earlier blockchain protocols used Proof Of Work (PoW) algorithm to achieve consensus due the need to achieve sanctity in the order of transactions (i.e agreement among nodes for validating transactions). It is PoW where all nodes (network of connected computers) are required to solve complex mathematical/cryptographical puzzles or calculations at a high speed (mining) making the environment a competitive one. This however consumes a very high amount of energy (power) making earlier blockchain quite uneconomical. In PoW, virtually all connected nodes is involved in transaction validation.As users increases, so is the transactions, nodes on node increase, more storage and more computing power and energy are required breeding the issues of scalability, latency and low throughput. How to we solve these problems?

Elrond built solutions

To curb the issues of scalability, latency and low throughput, Sharding system is being considered as being very effective in this regard. A shard is a horizontal portion of a database where each shards is stored in a separate server instance, each containing a part of the information on the blockchain. This spreads the load amongst he shards making the system more efficient. Even within the shards, decentralization is maintained since nodes that concentrate on a shard maintain the information on it only in a shared manner. Elrong adopts quite a distinctive Sharding method called Adaptive State Sharding — combining the three kinds of Sharding to ensure better communication with the shards. However, how interrelationship among the shards will be achieved is a separate topic I will explain later in next article.

Blockchains using Sharding system (Elrond) do not use PoW algorithm but in compatibility with Proof Of Stake (PoS). PoS is a designed algorithm with much more advantages over PoW. In PoS, all the node are not involve in transaction validation but assigned to some specific/designated nodes which are called Stakers. To validate transaction, they’re required to stake some good amount of the platform’s native token hence guaranteeing their loyalty lo since the entire network is not involve in validation. Elrond’s approach is quite more advanced as it uses the combination of staking and rating system — determining the eligibility of validators together with an optimal dimension for the consensus class. In Elrond, this is construed as Secure Proof Of Stake (SPoS). Going by this, Elrond completely removes the computational waste high energy consumption of PoW algorithm by adopting SPoS.
The robustness of the overall Elrond network is ensured through its intelligent design to give immunity against security threats like Rogue-key attack, Sybil attack etc. This aspect is quite technical. You will find more information here.

In Sharding, there is less energy needed, only designated nodes validate transaction and expensive special-purpose hardware isn’t needed. Elrond using Sharding is specifically designed to give 1000x efficient, secure and overall improvement in blockchain performance yet upholding the decentralized objective.

Lastly and worthy of note is lack of interoperability among several blockchains. Elrond instills cross-chain communication by developing compatibility tools for numerous blockchains where developers can with less effort to conveniently run smart contracts of other blockchains on it. That is, aiming to be a port for connecting to several blockchain protocols through its EVM (Elrond Virtually Machine). First on the list is ensuring that developers can conveniently run Ethereum Smart contract on Elrond by making Ethereum’s Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible with Elrond Virtual Machine (EVM). More information about this is here.