Polkadot is the latest blockchain protocol to get attention from the crypto community. It’s an Ethereum rival created by Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum. The project aims to allow blockchains to work together under one roof, creating a “shared web.”
Polkadot is an Ethereum rival created by Gavin Wood, the co-founder of Ethereum.
Polkadot is a blockchain protocol that allows blockchains to work together under one roof. The goal is to provide interoperability between public and private chains, as well as give developers flexibility when building applications on top of it.
A “relay chain” connects the blockchains, validating transactions and passing information between them.
The relay chain is a blockchain that connects other blockchains. It validates transactions and passes information between them. This makes it “hybrid,” a mix of public and private blockchains, which is what Polkadot calls itself. The relay chain works like a bridge between blockchains, making it possible for Polkadot users to interact with other networks as well as their own chain.
The network can also shard its processing power, dividing the workload across multiple blockchains in order to speed up transactions.
For example, Ethereum has a single blockchain that is used to process all transactions. This means that every transaction on Ethereum has to go through the entire network, which slows down the speed of each transaction. One way to speed up transactions is by splitting up the workload into multiple blockchains that work independently from one another. For example, if you want to transfer money between two different banks but they’re located in different zones of your city or even country, you can use this method where each bank creates their own blockchain and processes its own transactions on their own time frame while still staying synchronized with each other.
Polkadot uses this method as well, but with one key difference: You don’t have to set up separate blockchains for each use case because they all share certain components like consensus algorithms and account balances, so there isn’t much overhead involved when making changes across chains (in fact changing anything at all on a Polkadot network won’t affect anything else).
Polkadot has security advantages over Ethereum.
As we discussed earlier, Ethereum currently has a few shortcomings that prevent it from being the ultimate blockchain. One of these is security—it’s hard to make any system completely secure, but Ethereum has had a fair share of vulnerabilities in the past.
Polkadot is different. It offers an entirely new way of looking at blockchains: instead of one monolithic chain where everything happens in one place, Polkadot allows for parallel blockchains that can be linked to one another through “parachains.” A parachain is essentially just another blockchain that operates on its own but can be attached to the main Polkadot chain (or “rootchain”) via smart contracts.
In this setup, only the rootchain validates transactions between parachains and processes them into blocks; each individual parachain does not do either of those things. This means that any given part of Polkadot’s network cannot be tampered with unless you have access to all of them at once—and even then it would still be very difficult because each individual piece keeps its own state separate from others’ states.*
Polkadot’s native cryptocurrency is called DOT and it gives holders access to governance rights on the Polkadot network.
Polkadot’s native cryptocurrency is called DOT and it gives holders access to governance rights on the Polkadot network.
It can be used to pay transaction fees, but unlike Ethereum tokens or Bitcoin, DOT has a stable value. This means that its value remains consistent regardless of market conditions and other factors that affect other cryptocurrencies.
DOT has a stable nature that makes it attractive to investors; in addition to being able to earn money from trading DOT on exchanges like Binance.
Polkadot is an ethereum rival but it has some key differences
As a blockchain protocol that allows blockchains to work together under one roof, Polkadot has some key differences from Ethereum.
For example, Polkadot is designed to be “chain-agnostic” rather than “chain-specific.” While this may sound like a small change, it has a huge impact on how the network operates. With Ethereum, for instance, you need to use the Ethereum blockchain and its native currency (ETH) in order to send transactions. With Polkadot, however—at least in theory—any blockchain can connect with other blockchains and even interact with them using DOT tokens.