by The year 2020 will not be only remembered for Covid-19 because the year also witnessed several notable developments in the field of science, tech, and finance. In 2020, the world got familiar with the term Decentralized Finance aka DeFi. On the front of blockchain ecosystem enrichment, a lot of major developments have been seen and Polkadot Protocol was one of them.
Today, blocksutra will analyze polka in detail.
What is Polkadot?
“Polkadot is a next-generation blockchain protocol connecting multiple specialized blockchains into one unified network. Designed as part of a broad vision for a web that returns control to individuals over internet monopolies, Polkadot builds on the revolutionary promise of previous blockchain networks while offering several fundamental advantages.”
Regarded as the ‘blockchain of blockchains’, the Polkadot ecosystem solves multiple issues plaguing the existing blockchain and limitations that push back blockchain technology against scalability. This project came as a savior when new teams and projects started losing hope with popular blockchain-building frameworks like Ethereum. Polkadot not only solved the existing enterprise issues but also shaped blockchain technology into limitless possibilities through cross-chain operations and interoperability.
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The Polkadot Technology
The runtime environment of Polkadot makes it accessible to a diversified range of developers as it uses languages like C++ and Golang and Rust. On the networking front, polka uses libp2p– a cross-platform network framework for p2p ops. This networking framework takes care of peer discovery and comms being a standard for future decentralized applications.
A framework called Substrate is the blockchain-building framework of Polkadot. This framework comprises the best learnings from the blockchains of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and several other enterprise-level protocols and powers the relay chain of polka. Additionally, the state machine used by Polkadot is compiled into WebAssembly (Wasm). Wasm is a virtual environment that has been combinedly developed by software giants such as Microsoft, Apple, and Google.
Why Polkadot is important?
Polkadot makes the concept of decentralization truly limitless. Unlike Ethereum blockchain, Polkadot doesn’t restrict the users to a particular data type as it follows the principle of ‘Any Data type for Any Blockchain‘.
It means that the transactions are not limited to carrying the token but any arbitrary data. Polkadot facilitates the power of transferring data across both open/public/permissionless blockchains as well as private/permissioned blockchains.
It makes cross-chain registries and cross-chain computation possible. And because Polkadot provides a true multichain application environment, the developers can build applications using private data on a public blockchain through smart contracts via various proof algorithms (and beyond) on a public chain.
Features of Polkadot Protocol
By 2020, the blockchain world was heavily dominated by Ethereum’s blockchain and it’s a fact. But at the same time, it is also true that Ethereum lagged on many fronts be it its scalability issues, speed, or high gas fees (transaction costs). A lot of efforts have been made in the past to dethrone the brainchild of Vitalik Buterin. Unfortunately, none of them even reached near success. Several experiments were made by the innovators but at one or other front, they failed to compete.
Then came Polkadot Protocol which gave blockchain enthusiasts a fresh perspective on looking at scalability and governance. Polkadot has shown its muscles with the kind of offerings and solutions it had. In fact, in the span of less than a year, the protocol smoothly onboarded more than 100 blockchain projects on its own blockchain.
You must be curious by now about what secret recipe Polkadot protocol has that led to this rapid transition. We will not disappoint you either as you can get to know all the crucial information through this read.
1. Scaling Potential
As the Polkadot network holds cross-chain abilities, it automatically ensembles a huge amount of scaling potential. It means network congestion, high gas fee, and handling a limited amount of data are a matter of the past. Through its shared multichain network, instead of one-on-one multiple transactions in parallel on several chains (a process called parachaining) can be run. This makes Polkadot future-ready for adoption and scalability.
2. Interoperability
Inclusivity is key to adoption. The very concept of Polkadot advocates the cross-chain and multi-chain operational capabilities. Unlike the existing standalone networks, Polkadot offers full control and interoperability. The ability of the Polkadot network to transfer data across chains (cross-chain communication) makes it a favorite choice for a chain proving real-world data like a Job chain (or Oracle chain). Also, the network doesn’t require any dependency on any centralized data servers making it reliable.
3. Self-governing
The Governance model built on the Polkadot network offers complete customization, transparency, and control to the stakeholders. The participating teams can optimize the blockchain as per their own blockchain requirements by patching their ideas. They can experiment or swap in pre-built modules for faster deployment. the Polka ecosystem allows the facility of upgrading or improvising the governance model.
4. Forkless Upgrades
This aspect puts Polkadot way ahead of its competitors. With the ‘Forkless Upgrade’ option, polka offers a less time-consuming and swift procedure for upgrading the chains. One might think- what is Forkless Upgrade?
Unlike existing blockchain protocols, the Polkadot doesn’t require a ‘hard fork‘ for chain upgradations where two separate transaction histories are created. Fortunately, with its minimalistic approach, Polkadot achieves without splintering the community and creating multiple transactional records (forkless upgrades).
Web3.0 Applications Powered by Polkadot
As of now, more than 100 global blockchain companies are building their projects with all levels of Web 3.0 tech stacks. This contains low-level infra to advanced integrals like parachains, bridges, and so on. There are various applications that are being powered by the Polkadot network today. These applications are majorly scattered under:
- Finance
- Gaming
- Digital identity
- Robotics
- Scaling
- Privacy
- IoT
- Supply chain management
- Social networking and
- Cloud technologies
Way forward:
Polkadot is truly limitless when it comes to feature upgrades, scaling, and interoperability. This is by maintaining the efficiency and minimalistic approach for the incoming data. The unique Polkadot framework offers more room for innovation, control, and iterations for projects. The ease of polka for catching up with tech advancement makes it truly phenomenal and the trust and growth it amassed in such a short span testimonies to it.
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Great article.
I like this! Is there anything further I should think about next? Or is this enough?
Cheers!