The reason why Polkadot cannot replace Ethereum

Recently, Polkadot has become a hot topic in the cryptocurrency circle. In addition to the rising price of the currency, the slot hype from Polkadot and Kusama has also attracted the attention of many people, and the market value of Polkadot has continued to rise, and it is likely to replace USDT and surpass Ethereum. Therefore, many people have also shouted the slogan that Polkadot has become the killer of Ethereum. For a time, it can also compete with slogans such as "The sun rises not because of the crowing of a rooster after the three waves."

So can Polkadot replace Ethereum in this bull market? I think this is difficult. At present, Polkadot still has some problems, and these problems are also important factors that restrict the development of Polkadot's ecosystem. Therefore, it is still too early to see Polkadot replace Ethereum.

1. Polkadot’s ecosystem is not yet mature and the model remains to be verified

Although parachains and slot auctions seem relatively novel, new models often bring certain risks. That is, there is no past experience to refer to. In this case, many things can only remain in theory. For example, taking slot auctions as an example, it is still unclear whether this method can bring positive effects to the ecosystem. Of course, even if there is a high probability that it is beneficial, the real market reflection has not come out. It should be noted that the real market reflection refers to the project party bidding for the slot, not the speculators who have coins in their hands.

In the blockchain world, every major innovation will bring a problem, that is, there will always be traditionalists and newcomers. Traditionalists are often reluctant to accept new things, thinking that the previous things are already very good, while newcomers are often more likely to accept new things. They have their own plans, one is conservative and the other is innovative. Although historical experience tells us that innovation is often critical, conservatism is not useless. For example, Ethereum developed in that way. Even if Ethereum has increased significantly, it has not been able to exceed the market value of Bitcoin. The Bitcoin God Cult can rest easy and its position is untouchable.

Similarly, although the current Ethereum model also has some problems, it has at least been proven to be feasible, so naturally people are willing to take the path of least resistance, that is, the old path, because the old path will have some cases for people to refer to, which increases the probability of success of ecological project parties developing on it, and enables them to make money and do business faster. The new path naturally requires more polishing, so the new model brought by Polkadot still has a long way to explore.

2. The Polkadot ecosystem is relatively fragmented, which is not conducive to the steady increase of Polkadot’s market value

Polkadot uses a parallel chain approach. Polkadot also has a predecessor chain, Kusama. The price of Polkadot's slot auction is relatively expensive. If the project party cannot afford it, then they can bid for the slot of the predecessor chain Kusama. In this way, the cost will be reduced a lot. Theoretically, if the project party still cannot afford the Kusama slot auction, then someone may create a Kusama predecessor network, which will be used to carry lower-priced slot auctions. In theory, it can be endless. In other words, as long as you are a project party in the Polkadot ecosystem and are interested in bidding for slots, there will always be one that suits you.

In this way, we can assume that there may not be many projects connected to the Polkadot mainnet, because most of them are scattered on other pioneering networks or pioneering networks of pioneering networks, and many similar effects will be produced.

This example is the same as the Red Hat system and CentOS. If you can't afford the Red Hat system, then you can use CentOS. If you can't afford CentOS or want to use new features, then you can use Fedora. If you really feel uncomfortable or for other reasons, you can also use Ubuntu. Anyway, there is always one that suits you. This is similar to Polkadot's current vision. For Ethereum, it may be more like the Windows system. You think it has many problems, but you can still reach it directly and communicate directly with others about Ethereum problems, instead of using a transitional or test network system.

In the operating system field, we see that although Linux is huge, the user group of a single Red Hat RHEL is relatively small. However, in the Windows field, everyone basically uses win7 or win10, and there are many common words. For the Ethereum ecosystem, the more prosperous its ecological projects develop, the higher the market value of Ethereum will be. The more prosperous the Polkadot ecological projects develop, the higher the return on Polkadot will be, but it will be much lower than Ethereum.

To put it simply, I bid for a slot on Kusama, then worked on the project, and finally I claimed that I was a project in the Polkadot ecosystem. However, I was not directly connected to Polkadot, but to Kusama. Even if the project was done well, it would first affect Kusama, and then affect the price of Polkadot through Kusama. The contract was deployed directly on Ethereum, and the money paid directly was Ether. In this way, if the project was done well, it would naturally directly drive up the price of Ether.

Polkadot is still in its early stages and the hype is relatively high. Therefore, for such a project, it still needs to be tested by the market before a conclusion can be drawn. It is difficult to say whether a project is good or bad in the early stages. For example, in 2017, many people were optimistic about EOS. But now, with the departure of BM, EOS has basically followed in the footsteps of BTS. No one can guarantee whether Polkadot will be like that in the future. This is also very important.