NIGHTSHADE 2.0: NEAR'S NEW SHARDING DESIGN

Summary from the TLDR Crypto newsletter

Nightshade 2.0 allows for stateless validation, meaning NEAR validators no longer have to store their shard's state to verify state transitions and blockchain updates. It also improves performance and adds capacity for more shards - NEAR currently has six and plans to add four more by the end of the year. In 2025, the team will focus on dynamic re-sharding, which adjusts the number of shards based on network load and is considered “the holy grail of sharding.”