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.
The five-minute read
The defect
A sharded ledger that lets an adversary land in one shard has not sharded the security. It has concentrated it.
The proposal
OmniLedger reassigns validators to shards, uses a bias-resistant randomness beacon, and atomically commits cross-shard transactions.
Shard assignment is the security question.
Cross-shard transactions must commit or abort together.
The bound
The paper is not a deployed chain's validator count.
One action, walked through
- 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 is atomic across shards?
The argument, unpacked
What the paper is for
When a pitch says sharded, ask who assigns the committee and what happens to a transaction that touches two shards.
What happened after
Elastico and RapidChain are the neighbouring papers. Production shards copied pieces and dropped others.
What has to be true
- The paper is not a deployed chain's validator count.
- Randomness and committee size are assumptions.
- A cross-shard path that is only a bridge with an admin key is a different design.
What happened after the paper
Elastico and RapidChain are the neighbouring papers. Production shards copied pieces and dropped others.
What to check before you use the idea
- Who samples the shard?
- What is atomic across shards?
- What fraction of a committee can be Byzantine?
Terms
- Shard
- A committee and a state that do not see every transaction.
- Atomic commit
- All shards involved accept the transaction, or none do.
The problem the paper 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
- The paper is not a deployed chain's validator count.
- Randomness and committee size are assumptions.
- A cross-shard path that is only a bridge with an admin key is a different design.
Why a venture studio still reads it
When a pitch says sharded, ask who assigns the committee and what happens to a transaction that touches two shards.
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.