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Polkadot Project and Technology, comparison with Ethereum blockchain

Overview

Polkadot is a next-generation blockchain network and an ecosystem providing blockspace for all kinds of Web3 projects1. It is a protocol that connects blockchains, allowing value and data to be sent across previously incompatible networks. The native cryptocurrency for the Polkadot blockchain is the DOT.

Interoperability

Polkadot enables cross-blockchain transfers of any type of data or asset, not just tokens. Connecting to Polkadot gives you the ability to interoperate with a wide variety of blockchains in the Polkadot network.

Scalability

Polkadot provides unprecedented economic scalability by enabling a common set of validators to secure multiple blockchains. It provides transactional scalability by spreading transactions across multiple parallel blockchains. As the network grows and more parachains are added, Polkadot should get even faster, with speeds that could hit a million transactions per second.

Blockchain Innovation

You can create a custom blockchain in minutes using the Substrate framework. Connect your chain to Polkadot and get interoperability and security from day one. This ease of development helps Polkadot’s network grow.

Energy Efficiency

Polkadot consumes a small fraction of the energy used by conventional blockchains thanks to its next-generation nominated proof-of-stake (NPoS) model. Using the equivalent of ~6.6 US households worth of energy per year, Polkadot has the lowest carbon footprint among proof-of-stake protocols analyzed in recent research.

Security

Polkadot’s novel data availability and validity scheme allows chains to interact with each other in a meaningful way. Chains remain independent in their governance, but united in their security.

Governance

Polkadot has a sophisticated governance system where all stakeholders have a voice. Network upgrades are coordinated on-chain and enacted autonomously and without forking the network, ensuring that Polkadot’s development remains future-proof and community-driven.

DOT Token

The DOT token serves three distinct purposes: governance over the network, staking, and bonding. Polkadot token holders have complete control over the protocol. All privileges, which on other platforms are exclusive to miners, will be given to the Relay Chain participants (DOT holders), including managing exceptional events such as protocol upgrades and fixes.

Staking

Token holders keep the network secure and collect rewards by staking DOT. Polkadot’s advanced staking system is designed for maximum decentralization and fair representation, rewarding good actors and punishing bad actors to ensure network security.

Bonding

New parachains are added by bonding tokens. Outdated or non-useful parachains are removed by removing bonded tokens. This is a form of proof of stake.

Open-Source Protocol

Polkadot is an open-source project founded by the Web3 Foundation. Web3 Foundation has commissioned five teams and over 100 developers to build Polkadot.

For more detailed information, you can visit the official Polkadot website or read more about it on various resources.

Polkadot and Ethereum are both blockchain platforms, but they serve fundamentally different roles and have different architectures:

Ethereum:

  • Ethereum is a general-purpose blockchain that hosts the Ethereum Virtual Machine, an environment for executing smart contracts.
  • Ethereum is not specialized nor optimized for any particular application, rather its primary focus is the Ethereum Virtual Machine for executing smart contracts.
  • Ethereum looks to provide services on a large financial scale. It can be used to send transactions to anyone, anywhere.
  • The development team is extremely focused on the scalability of this process, aiming to provide fast and efficient transactions between anyone with Ethereum 2.0.

Polkadot:

  • Polkadot is a heterogeneous sharded, multi-chain protocol that hosts multiple chains and provides a way for them to partake in a shared security model.
  • Polkadot acts as a meta-protocol that allows for multiple protocols to coexist and work together.
  • Each shard is usually specialized towards a specific focus and optimized towards that goal.
  • Polkadot provides shared security and consensus to these shards through the Polkadot relay chain.
  • Polkadot is a multichain network that can process transactions across parallel chains or parachains.
  • Over 100 chains are linked to the network, allowing for up to 1,000,000 transactions to be processed per second.

In terms of scalability and sharding, the way Ethereum and Polkadot deal with these issues is quite different. Polkadot aims to be a sharded multichain network, allowing for interoperability between different blockchains. As part of Ethereum’s roadmap, the previously dubbed “shard chains” have been forgone in favor of rollup-based approach for scaling transaction throughput.

In terms of smart contracts, both Ethereum and Polkadot offer smart contracts on their respective chains. They both operate very similarly, but Polkadot is more creativity-driven while Ethereum aims to provide scalability.

It’s important to note that the comparison here refers to what was previously known as “Eth2” or “Ethereum 2.0” for Ethereum.


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