Why database sharding is massive for Ethereum Developers - Toshi Times

Database sharding is seen as one of the most prominent ways to scale blockchains and is currently being developed by projects such as Ethereum, Zilliqa or Polkadot. Database sharding, nowadays most commonly known simply as sharding, is a technique that allows nodes to process only small parts of the entire blockchain transactions.

Essentially, common storage and relay problems are prone to arise in public and open blockchains: Under State Sharding, the nodes in each shard build their own blockchain and contain transactions that affect only the local part assigned to that shard. Some of the key benefits of sharding are the reduction of the overall blockchain size and the possibility for a quadratic network performance enhancement.

Timeline of Ethereum, Zilliqa