Shardeum is an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-based, linearly scalable smart contract platform. It aims to provide low gas fees while maintaining true decentralization and solid security through dynamic state sharding. The platform is designed to increase transactions per second (TPS) by adding more nodes, making it the first linearly scalable Layer 1 blockchain network.
History
The Shardeum project was initiated between 2017 and 2021, with the initial prototype demonstrating EVM integration with Shardus. The Shardeum Foundation was structured in Switzerland during this period.
In Q1 2022, the Alphanet 1.0 was launched, featuring a 20-node unsharded network operated by Shardeum. This allowed users to send transactions and deploy smart contracts. The private sale of Shardeum tokens ($SHM) also started during this period.
The Alphanet 2.0 was launched in Q2 2022, featuring a 50-node sharded network operated by Shardeum. This marked the first smart contract platform to implement EIP2930.
In Q3 2022, the Liberty 2.1 Upgrade was introduced, automating EIP-2930 and increasing the TPS capacity to 100. The Betanet was launched in Q4 2022, introducing Sphinx 1.0 and Sphinx 1.1, which increased the TPS, validators, and node shard size.
The Mainnet is expected to launch in Q2 2023, following a security audit, bug bounties, and scalability testing.
Features
Shardeum offers several features, including:
- State Sharded Blockchain: The platform provides the first demonstration of a state sharded blockchain with cross shard atomic composability.
- EIP 2930 Automation: Shardeum offers EIP 2930 automation for a streamlined developer experience.
- Validator Nodes: The network includes 50 validator nodes with a shard size of 5 nodes.
Tokenomics
Shardeum has a fixed supply of 508 million $SHM tokens.
Community
Shardeum has a strong community presence, with over 300,000 community members and 30,000+ newsletter subscribers. The community, known as Shardians, are considered a key pillar to Shardeum's success.
Team
The Shardeum team includes Nischal Shetty, founder of WazirX and Crowdfire, and Omar Syed, a distributed systems architect with 30 years of experience at NASA, Yahoo, Raytheon, and Zynga.
Investments
Shardeum raised $18m in seed funding in 2022 and recently announced $5.4m in strategic funding.
