Sharding technology is a crucial method to improve the scalability of blockchain systems. However, current sharding designs often overlook the issues of load imbalance between shards and the heterogeneity of nodes, leading to resource waste and a decline in system performance. To solve this problem, this paper proposed BalChain, a sharded blockchain system based on reputation and load, aimed at enhancing system throughput and security. BalChain employed a dual-chain architecture, consisting of a transaction chain and a reputation chain, utilizing the Raft protocol and a collective signature Byzantine fault tolerance (CSBFT) mechanism, respectively, to ensure efficient transaction processing and robust system security. This paper also introduced a reputation-load matching sharding algorithm, which dynamically allocated computing resources based on shard load, fully utilizing the heterogeneity of nodes. Moreover, the system reduced cross-shard transactions through Metis graph partitioning algorithm, further improving transaction processing efficiency. Experimental results demonstrate that BalChain outperforms existing sharded blockchain systems in terms of throughput, latency, and cross-shard transaction processing efficiency, which proved the effectiveness and scalability of the design in real-world applications.
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