Editor's Note: This article comes fromBlue Fox Notes (ID: lanhubiji), reprinted by Odaily with authorization.
Editor's Note: This article comes from
Blue Fox Notes (ID: lanhubiji)Blue Fox Notes (ID: lanhubiji)》、《, reprinted by Odaily with authorization.》《The public chain is a trillion-dollar track. New public chains will claim to be the next generation of new technologies. But in the end, it is the comprehensive factors that determine whether the public chain can go in the long run. One is the temperament of the founding team. There are leading and implementable technologies and idealism, which is an important part of the sustainability of the project. Such a team will not stop building because of the ups and downs of the market. The second is the community. With the support of token holders and developers, only a real ecology will make the public chain more valuable, have a larger market value, and be safer, thus moving towards a positive cycle.》、《The public chain is not only the most attractive track in the encryption field, but also the most difficult field to succeed. In addition to Ethereum, which other public chains have opportunities? This is the focus of great attention from both developers and investors. Polkadot is one of the most concerned public chains outside of Ethereum. There are also many introductions about Polkadot. Blue Fox Notes has also mentioned many times before "》、《Polkadot 2019》、《The launch roadmap of the Polkadot network》、《Simple to understand Polkadot》、《After the launch of Polkadot: the initial performance on the linePolkadot (Poca): The cornerstone of the new Internet?
Polkadot is a public chain, but it is a special public chain. It consists of multiple chains, and it is a public chain that can have multiple chains. Why not use a chain? It tries to solve the problems of scalability, speed, and cost, allowing more personalized blockchains to exist, allowing interoperability and upgrading between chains, and allowing self-governance of chains.
Polkadot is a public chain, but it is a special public chain. It consists of multiple chains, and it is a public chain that can have multiple chains. Why not use a chain? It tries to solve the problems of scalability, speed, and cost, allowing more personalized blockchains to exist, allowing interoperability and upgrading between chains, and allowing self-governance of chains.
（Source：Polkadot.network）
Polkadot not only supports token transfer, but also supports the transfer of data between different chains. Its ultimate goal is to become a cross-chain network protocol, making cross-chain registration and cross-chain computing possible.
Polkadot architecture and scalability
Polkadot, on the other hand, is taking the road of heterogeneous sharding blockchain. The so-called heterogeneity is actually the "union" of different blockchains. In contrast, Ethereum's shards are isomorphic and are all part of the Ethereum blockchain.
（Source：Vitalik Buterin）
Polkadot, on the other hand, is taking the road of heterogeneous sharding blockchain. The so-called heterogeneity is actually the "union" of different blockchains. In contrast, Ethereum's shards are isomorphic and are all part of the Ethereum blockchain.
In Polkadot, there is a central chain, which connects all blockchains, which is the "relay chain". Connected to the “relay chain” are parachains.
（Source：Polkadot.network）
This relay chain + parallel chain architecture is the reason why Polkadot can achieve scalability. Multiple chains can process transactions in parallel instead of queuing up on one road for processing. In this way, compared to the current Ethereum, Polkadot can have higher throughput, faster speed and lower fees.
（Source：Polkadot.network）
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In the future Polkadot planning, it is even possible to add a relay chain to the relay chain to realize a chain-in-chain, trying to achieve greater expansion in this way. In addition, the parachains on Polkadot are different from the chains on Cosmos. They have shared security, which is also an important reason for attracting developers to build parachains on Polkadot. Because, for the blockchain, it is not easy to build security from scratch.
The security of the blockchain stems from whether the consensus is reliable. This is why the consensus mechanism has always been one of the most important components of the blockchain. When the state on the chain changes, all nodes need to reach a consensus, and the mechanism for reaching consensus is the key to whether the blockchain can achieve security.
Polkadot is a PoS mechanism that mixes BABE and GRANDPA. In the traditional PoW mechanism, people obtain bookkeeping rights through proof of work, while in the PoS mechanism, people need to pledge tokens, and pledgers are also verifiers, stakeholders, and they need to verify the state transition proof of the parallel chain. Relay blocks are produced based on the validity of these proofs.
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Security of Polkadot Parachain
The security of the blockchain stems from whether the consensus is reliable. This is why the consensus mechanism has always been one of the most important components of the blockchain. When the state on the chain changes, all nodes need to reach a consensus, and the mechanism for reaching consensus is the key to whether the blockchain can achieve security.
BABE (Blind Assignment for Blockchain Extension) is a block production mechanism running between verification nodes, which determines the generator of new blocks. To some extent, BABE can be compared with Ouroboros Praos, but there are big differences in chain selection rules and slot time adjustments. BABE will allocate slots for validators to produce blocks according to the amount of pledged tokens and the random cycle of Polkadot.
（Source：Polkadot.network）
Validators maintain the security of the relay chain by staking DOT tokens, verify proofs from Collator, and reach consensus with other validators. In order to prevent validators from colluding, they are randomly selected based on the amount of DOT tokens pledged by validators. If they truthfully report the state change of the assigned parachain, they will be rewarded with DOT; if they are dishonest (checked by other nodes), their pledged tokens will be slashed.
In Polkadot, there is a class of characters called fishermen. They can also report these dishonest verifiers, and fishermen can also be collectors and verifiers. Verifiers will not publish all transactions to Polkadot's relay chain, but only state change proofs. Therefore, the relay chain has no knowledge of the actual transactions on the parachains, but they can verify that the current state is valid. In addition, the verifier will change randomly and will not be fixed on a certain parachain. It is not a part of the parachain, but a part of the relay chain.
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There are also the roles of Nominator and Collator on Polkadot, which are also important roles in participating in the relay chain. Nominator does not directly become a validator, but can obtain DOT rewards by choosing a validator to participate in the verification. Of course, if the chosen validators are penalized, they will also be slashed. Collator collects user transactions on the parachain and provides state transition proofs for verifiers to maintain the parachain. Collator maintains full nodes for the relay chain as well as full nodes for specific parachains.
Interoperability of Polkadot Parachains
The parachains on Polkadot are interconnected so that they can achieve interoperability. The starting point of Polkadot's parallel chain design is that Polkadot believes that blockchains are personalized, and different chains can focus on specific areas. Ultimately each chain serves a different need. For example, some focus on trading, some on lending, some on asset management, some on games, and so on. When these parachains focus on different areas, they may perform better.
Blockchain upgrades and governance have always been a big issue. This is also related to the fact that the blockchain is a decentralized network. Hard forks have also become a common sight in blockchains when upgrades are not well resolved by governance. In order to iterate, project developers and node operators need to do a lot of work.
Polkadot Upgrades and Governance
Of course, this also means that the holders of the Polkadot token DOT are very important, and it is the DOT holders who determine the future direction of Polkadot.
Polkadot governance includes DOT holders, councils and technical committees who actively participate in governance. When the number of votes for a proposal passes a specific voting indicator, the proposal will be passed.
However, the parachain on Polkadot does not need to worry about hard forks. Polkadot solves this problem through the governance system and code level. Polkadot's code is updated according to its voting system, which is also part of the blockchain itself. The Polkadot network updates the core code, publishing transactions similar to deploying smart contracts. As a result, iterative updates can be achieved without hard forks, and nodes do not need to do more operations.
（Source：Polkadot.network）
Proposals are generally proposed by ordinary token holders or the council, and will eventually be decided by the vote of DOT token holders. In the common token holder's proposal, users only need to deposit the minimum required amount of tokens within a certain period of time to initiate a proposal. And if other people agree to the proposal, then they will deposit the same amount of DOT to support it. The proposal backed by the most amount of DOT tokens is selected as the unanimous voting proposal. As for the council proposal, when all council members agree, it will become a general voting proposal. It adopts an adaptive quorum approval mechanism. The smaller the number of pledged votes, the smaller the number required for its approval. If it is a proposal approved by a majority of council members, it can also become a plenary vote proposal, but its threshold is higher, and it requires a majority of votes to pass a resolution.
Polkadot Token Economic Mechanism
The council is of great significance in the governance of Polkadot, which is different from the pure community governance of DeFi. In Polkadot's council, which consists of 13 to 24 members, the council has some relatively special rights: conduct general votes and emergency votes; cancel controversial or malicious general votes; elect technical committees; There is more weight in voting.
The main uses of DOT are:
Polkadot Token Economic Mechanism
Holding DOT has the opportunity to obtain voting rights for proposals, and can participate in the resolution of proposals, such as determining network fees, adding or removing parachains, etc.
The main uses of DOT are:
DOT also serves the consensus mechanism that supports the Polkadot network. To achieve consensus, participants need to pledge DOT tokens. This is the most important role of DOT, which is responsible for the security of the Polkadot network.
DOT Serves Cyber Security
In order to become a parachain of the Polkadot network, a certain amount of DOT must be bound for a period of time. During the binding period, DOT will be continuously locked. This means that if the Polkadot ecology is favored by developers, DOT will become popular in order to compete for limited positions.
From the above mechanism, DOT’s token mechanism is deeply bound to its Polkadot network, and is deeply integrated with its governance, security and usage. If the Polkadot ecology develops, its governance, security, and usage will create a great demand for DOT. In other words, the value of DOT itself is highly related to the ecological development of Polkadot itself.
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Polkadot's public chain road
From a paradigm perspective, Polkadot is still in the category of smart contract platforms. Where will it go under the ecology of Ethereum? Is it beyond Ethereum? Or is it an important addition to Ethereum?
It depends on the evolution of the developers, the community and the public chain itself. Can Layer 2 and sharding of Ethereum play an important role in the future, and how to achieve interoperability between Layer 2 and shards? Is Ethereum's road to scalability smooth? Is Polkadot's cross-chain model a better path, and can it win the favor of developers? Do other public chains, such as Solana, have a chance to gain a place?
There is no clear answer to these, but one thing is certain, the public chain is the most important infrastructure in the encryption field, and the future evolution of the public chain will directly determine the development direction of the entire encryption field.
Polkadot's public chain road
《The launch roadmap of the Polkadot network》
《Simple to understand Polkadot》
《After the launch of Polkadot: the initial performance on the line》
