LibraryScaling2018Design paperCorpus record
OmniLedger: A Secure, Scale-Out, Decentralized Ledger via Sharding
OmniLedger. Eleftherios Kokoris-Kogias, Philipp Jovanovic, Linus Gasser, Nicolas Gailly, Ewa Syta and Bryan Ford.
OmniLedger reassigns validators to shards, uses a bias-resistant randomness beacon, and atomically commits cross-shard transactions.
A reading of the public paper. Not a copy, not a benchmark, and not a claim about any later network.
When a pitch says sharded, ask who assigns the committee and what happens to a transaction that touches two shards.
- Evidence
- Primary paper
- Re-measured
- No
- Assumptions
- 3
- Records linked
- 3
Code
Source, repository, and what is actually hosted
- ePrint 2017/406https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/406
- The source URL is not a GitHub repository. No code remote is invented.
- Full text is not mirrored. Public availability is not a licence to copy the file onto this site.
- Add to a reading list
01 Claim ledger
What the paper is allowed to say
Each row is a sentence already in the study. The status is the same on every row: a model claim, not a live measurement.
Claim 01 · Paper model
The defect
A sharded ledger that lets an adversary land in one shard has not sharded the security. It has concentrated it.
Claim 02 · Paper model
The proposal
OmniLedger reassigns validators to shards, uses a bias-resistant randomness beacon, and atomically commits cross-shard transactions.
Claim 03 · Paper model
Shard assignment is the security question.
Cross-shard transactions must commit or abort together.
Claim 04 · Paper model
The bound
The paper is not a deployed chain's validator count.
02 Three cuts
Observation, model, falsifier
A desk does not stop at the summary. Each claim is cut three ways, using only this study's own assumptions and checks. Nothing here is a new figure.
01 The defect
Observation
What the study says
A sharded ledger that lets an adversary land in one shard has not sharded the security. It has concentrated it.
Model
What has to hold
A cross-shard path that is only a bridge with an admin key is a different design.
Falsifier
What would retire it
Who samples the shard?
02 The proposal
Observation
What the study says
OmniLedger reassigns validators to shards, uses a bias-resistant randomness beacon, and atomically commits cross-shard transactions.
Model
What has to hold
A cross-shard path that is only a bridge with an admin key is a different design.
Falsifier
What would retire it
Who samples the shard?
03 Shard assignment is the security question.
Observation
What the study says
Cross-shard transactions must commit or abort together.
Model
What has to hold
A cross-shard path that is only a bridge with an admin key is a different design.
Falsifier
What would retire it
Who samples the shard?
04 The bound
03 Sequence
One action, as an operating tape
- 01Elect a shard assignment from randomness the adversary cannot grind after seeing it.
- 02Process a transaction inside the shard committee.
- 03If it touches another shard, run the atomic path the paper specifies.
- 04What is atomic across shards?
04 Load-bearing
The argument, and where a pitch drops it
What the paper is for
The cut
When a pitch says sharded, ask who assigns the committee and what happens to a transaction that touches two shards.
Why it carries weight
If this cut is skipped, the paper's name is being used without the mechanism that makes the name mean anything.
Where it is dropped
Randomness and committee size are assumptions.
What happened after
The cut
Elastico and RapidChain are the neighbouring papers. Production shards copied pieces and dropped others.
Why it carries weight
If this cut is skipped, the paper's name is being used without the mechanism that makes the name mean anything.
Where it is dropped
A later client, parameter or reward formula is a different object from this paragraph.
05 Register
What has to be true
06 Divergence
What happened after the paper
Elastico and RapidChain are the neighbouring papers. Production shards copied pieces and dropped others.
A later client, parameter set, or reward formula is a different object. Cite this paper for the mechanism. Cite a primary release for the network. This desk has not re-run the proof.
07 Pre-mortem
What to check before you use the idea
- 0 of 3 marked on this browser. A mark is a reading note, not a pass, a rating, or a recommendation.
08 Anatomy
The paper, in the order a builder needs
The problem it names
A sharded ledger that lets an adversary land in one shard has not sharded the security. It has concentrated it.
What the design proposes
- Shard assignment is the security question.
- Cross-shard transactions must commit or abort together.
- A client should not have to trust one shard's word against the ledger.
How the mechanism is specified
- Elect a shard assignment from randomness the adversary cannot grind after seeing it.
- Process a transaction inside the shard committee.
- If it touches another shard, run the atomic path the paper specifies.
What this page does not treat as proven
Why the desk still reads it
When a pitch says sharded, ask who assigns the committee and what happens to a transaction that touches two shards.
09 Lexicon
Terms, opened into the record
- Shard
- A committee and a state that do not see every transaction.
- Atomic commit
- All shards involved accept the transaction, or none do.
10 Repository
Every linked record on this page
Underlined words open a page that already exists: a concept, a protocol profile, a failure record, or another paper. If a word is not underlined, this desk does not have a record for it.
Papers
This is Blockchain Lab's reading of a public design paper. It is not the paper, not a copy of it, and not an offer of tokens, equity, custody or a partnership. Later network behaviour can diverge from the text. Nothing here is investment, legal or technical advice.
Research status: Design paper. Last reviewed: 1 October 2026. This is a reading of a public paper, not investment, legal or security advice.