WazirX founder launches blockchain Shardeum

Indian crypto exchange WazirX CEO and founder Nischal Shetty launched a sharded layer 1 blockchain. Unlike other blockchains, Shardeum will solve for scalability and expensive transaction costs, while maintaining a high level of decentralisation.

Shardeum aims to be a chain capable of onboarding over a billion people to the blockchain and crypto revolution. The guiding principles of Shardeum will be based on OCC i.e., Open, Collaborative and Community driven.

Nischal said, “If you are looking at 200 million people today in crypto worldwide, this will go to a billion people in the future. There is no way the existing blockchains will be able to support that. Sharding is a known solution to solve this problem, which is what Shardeum is built on. I think as you go deeper, you'll realise it's going to be a multi-chain universe. I want to make sure that for anyone who's looking for a decentralised scalable blockchain, Shardeum is the answer.”

A portion of the native token of the project, called Shard, will be sold to private investors to fund the development of the blockchain, which will be overseen by a nonprofit organisation. A white paper with details of the token split and token economics is expected to be released soon.

The bootstrapped venture, founded by Shetty and the builder of Shardeum, Omar Syed, plans to raise funds by April and launch in beta in the third quarter of the year. Shardeum currently has a team of 20 people between the US and India. While Syed handles the technical side, Shetty is responsible for building a community around the blockchain.