Account Relocation for Optimization Load Balancing in Ethereum Sharding

Abstract

Existing blockchain system face scalability issues when processing massive amounts of data.These issues primarily arise due to their consensus based block generation methods.Sharding has emerged as a promising on chain solution to enhance the scalability of blockchain.This technology increases throughput by dividing the main network into several sub-networks, called shards, which can process transactions in parallel.However, implementing sharding in blockchain system presents two significant challenges: Cross shard transactions and load imbalance between different shards.Cross shard transaction refers to transactions generated between accounts belonging to different shards.Load imbalance occurs when specifical one shard processes a disproportionately higher transaction load than others.These challenges can lead to increased network delay, confirmation time, latency, and fees due to complicated inter-shard communication, thereby reducing blockchain throughput.To address these challenges, this paper proposes an innovative account relocation scheme.This scheme aims to optimize load balancing in blockchain sharding using a round robin algorithm.To validate the effectiveness of our approach, we utilized a simulator that incorporates real Ethereum data.We then compared the degree of load balancing achieved by our method against existing methods, such as schemes that use no-relocation and random relocation.Our results indicate a significant improvement in load balancing performance compared to previous approaches.