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Blockchain technology, while revolutionary in enabling decentralized transactions, faces scalability challenges as the ledger must be replicated across all nodes of the chain, limiting throughput and efficiency. Sharding, which divides the chain into smaller segments, called shards, offers a solution by enabling parallel transaction processing. However, sharding introduces new complexities, notably how to allocate nodes to shards without compromising the network's security. This paper introduces a novel linear optimization framework for node allocation to shards that addresses decentralization constraints while minimizing resource consumption. In contrast to traditional methods that depend on random or trust-based assignments, our approach evaluates node characteristics, including ownership, hardware, and geographical distribution, and requires an explicit specification of decentralization targets with respect to these characteristics. By employing linear optimization, the framework identifies a resource-efficient node set meeting these targets. Adopted by the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP) community, this framework proves its utility in real-world blockchain applications. It provides a quantitative tool for node onboarding and offboarding decisions, balancing decentralization and resource considerations.
Assmann et al. (Wed,) studied this question.