In MultiversX, adaptive sharding combines three types of sharding—network, transaction, and state—to enhance scalability and efficiency. This approach distributes transaction processing across multiple shards, allowing parallel processing and significantly increasing transaction throughput without compromising security or decentralization.

Key Sharding Types

• Network Sharding: Organizes nodes into shards for faster, local communication, optimizing data propagation within each shard.
• Transaction Sharding: Directs transactions to specific shards, often by account address, to streamline transaction handling.
• State Sharding: The most complex, where each shard only holds a part of the blockchain’s global state. This reduces storage demands and enables parallel updates across shards, though cross-shard transactions require coordination.

Node Shuffling for Security

To secure the network against collusion, MultiversX regularly shuffles nodes between shards at the end of each epoch. This process is guided by a metachain, using a random source to select nodes unpredictably, ensuring that shuffling enhances security without impacting system performance.

By blending these sharding techniques, MultiversX achieves high transaction speeds and scalability, making blockchain technology more viable for widespread adoption.

Reference: https://docs.multiversx.com/learn/sharding