# A Two-Layer Blockchain Sharding Protocol Leveraging Safety and Liveness for Enhanced Performance

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.11373 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.11373/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 17 Oct 2023.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [GasAgent: A Multi-Agent Framework for Automated Gas Optimization in Smart Contracts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.15761/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Sharding is essential for improving blockchain scalability. Existing protocols overlook diverse adversarial attacks, limiting transaction throughput. This paper presents Reticulum, a groundbreaking sharding protocol addressing this issue, boosting blockchain scalability. Reticulum employs a two-phase approach, adapting transaction throughput based on runtime adversarial attacks. It comprises "control" and "process" shards in two layers. Process shards contain at least one trustworthy node, while control shards have a majority of trusted nodes. In the first phase, transactions are written to blocks and voted on by nodes in process shards. Unanimously accepted blocks are confirmed. In the second phase, blocks without unanimous acceptance are voted on by control shards. Blocks are accepted if the majority votes in favor, eliminating first-phase opponents and silent voters. Reticulum uses unanimous voting in the first phase, involving fewer nodes, enabling more parallel process shards. Control shards finalize decisions and resolve disputes. Experiments confirm Reticulum's innovative design, providing high transaction throughput and robustness against various network attacks, outperforming existing sharding protocols for blockchain networks.