Solving Confirmation Time in Sharded Blockchain with PFQN

Abstract

Sharding shows great potential for extending the efficiency of blockchains. The current challenge facing sharded blockchain technology lies in addressing the extended transaction confirmation times caused by isolated states between shards and unbalanced transaction allocation strategies. These factors contribute to an increase in cross-shard transactions and disproportionate shard workloads, ultimately resulting in indefinite confirmation delays for cross-shard transactions. A critical priority for sharded blockchain systems is to conduct a comprehensive qualitative analysis to better understand and mitigate the prolonged transaction confirmation times. We introduce a product-form queue network (PFQN) model to address the transaction confirmation time problem in sharded blockchains and incorporate a new confirmation queue to more accurately simulate the actual transaction confirmation process in the blockchain. In addition, we provide a detailed quantitative analysis of the relationship between the network load and consensus efficiency in sharded blockchains, offering a meaningful perspective for achieving robustness and efficiency in sharded blockchains. This research not only contributes to addressing the scalability issues in sharded blockchains but also offers a new perspective for future research directions.