Apollo Currency is making history by becoming the first project to utilize sharding on an active blockchain and one of the first cryptocurrency ventures to implement a solution to blockchain bloat. Apollo sharding was activated on April 1, 2019 and the first shard segments on the blockchain at block 2,250,000. This first shard signals a monumental accomplishment toward blockchain advancement and a revolutionary moment in cryptocurrency history.

“With the release of sharding, Apollo has officially become the fastest, most feature-rich and most sustainable cryptocurrency available,” says Stephen McCullah, director of business development.

Solving Blockchain Bloat

Blockchain bloat prevents DLT systems (distributed ledger technologies) from scaling. Although each block adds only a small amount of data, this information accumulated over time leads to an astronomically large database. The accumulation of data from blocks will inevitably result in slower speeds, reduced functionality, and difficulty downloading its database.

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“Sharding allows a user to download the blockchain much faster, and it reduces the cycle-time of operations as well as lowers the needed disk space,” says Sergey Rokhvarg, chief technology officer. “Apollo sharding is a trailblazing innovation that was only theory until recently.”

How Sharding Works

“An increasing number of transactions leads to a constant increase in the Apollo database. This process goes faster with shorter block time,” says Sergey Rokhvarg, CTO. “Blockchain requires full access to the ledger from beginning to end to verify each transaction, but this task does not run every time. Most operations require smaller parts of an entire database.”

According to Mr. Rokhvarg, that creates an opportunity to be more efficient. As the first shard executes, the following takes place:

• The Apollo ledger database will split into time-based (or blockchain height-based) segments, and the split will be made on each node in the consensus with each node knowing when that split occurred.
• Each shard will complete every 750,000 blocks after 1,400 blocks of acknowledgment.
• Information will be added to each shard/segment that allows blockchain operations to occur without queries to the full ledger database. This will optimize the blockchain processing code to use the last segment for most operations.
• Each segment will be trusted as nodes sign its summary tables. Downloading of the full blockchain will be optional/delayed. Rather, nodes will download the latest segment and start processing from there.
• Downloading of previous blockchain segments will occur on-demand.

The results are remarkable speed, as well as scalability of the Apollo blockchain, according to the foundation’s development team. [website: apollocurrency.com]

Anticipating Future Network Challenges

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Distributed ledger technologies (DLT) are undergoing 80% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and they are expected to become a $23 billion industry worldwide by 2023 according to Reportlinker. The $300 billioncryptocurrency market is estimated to have 32% CAGR by 2025 according to Market Insights Reports.

But more use could also lead to unstable networks.

“When we developed sharding, the team had to significantly renovate the data-exchange mechanism, which allows using other types of sharding and optimization in the future,” says Sergey Rokhvarg, CTO. “In the near future, we’ll release a core code for sharding. The new protocol will initiate on block 2,250,000 and more shards will form every 750,000 blocks.”

Apollo as the Ultimate Currency

“Sharding and adaptive forging make Apollo the most sustainable blockchain on Earth,” says Steve McCullah, director of business development. “Our goal is to realize sub-one-second transaction speeds and TPS capabilities in the multi-millions before the end of 2020.”

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Apollo is among the fastest cryptos on Earth with two-second settlement speed.

Adaptive forging (launched in Q4 2018) synergizes with sharding to eliminate wasteful, non-stop block creation. Thanks to this breakthrough technology, blocks are only created and forged when a transaction takes place. This approach simplifies the blockchain and lowers the required disk space for storing a database. This further improves speed, eliminates bloat issues, and makes the blockchain hyper-efficient.

Other mainstream crypto projects have been unsuccessful at creating similar sustainability solutions.

Mr. McCullah concludes by saying “it’s crucial for developers to stay ahead of the curve, and to consider upcoming trends in their organization’s strategic planning. The Web 3.0 economy is evolving fast and it’s important to match developer competence with vision and prudence. Blockchain use-cases are leading to tectonic shifts in how people and merchants do business, and we want to prevent future issues that are avoidable. Sharding makes blockchain technology scalable and sustainable.”

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SOURCE Apollo Foundation