Definition ∞ Sublinear Scaling describes a system’s efficiency characteristic where its performance increases at a slower rate than the increase in its resources or input size. In computing and network contexts, this means that adding more resources yields diminishing returns in performance improvement. Understanding this property is crucial for designing efficient and sustainable blockchain architectures.
Context ∞ The discussion surrounding sublinear scaling in blockchain technology often relates to the challenges of achieving high transaction throughput and network decentralization simultaneously. Its situation involves optimizing consensus mechanisms and data propagation to minimize performance degradation as the network grows. Critical future developments include advancements in sharding and layer-2 solutions that aim to overcome the limitations of sublinear scaling for global adoption.