What is the value of Polkadot ecosystem in 2021? | Online Classroom

On January 19, 2021, PolkaWorld Marketing Director Shui Yuanshuozi was a guest in the live broadcast room of Lieyun Finance's "Online Classroom" and gave everyone a keynote speech on the theme of "Exploring the Value of the Polkadot Ecosystem in 2021-Interpretation of the Parachain Slot Auction Mechanism".

The following is the sharing record (edited):

Host: Good afternoon, everyone! I am Yu Meng, the host of Lieyun Finance Online Classroom. Lieyun Finance is a vertical blockchain media under Lieyun Group. It has many popular brand columns, and its in-depth interview articles are also highly recognized by the industry. Online and offline activities are also held regularly.

In this column, we will talk about Polkadot. Our guest is Shui Yuanyuanzi, the marketing manager of PolkaWorld. Please introduce yourself to everyone, and also briefly introduce PolkaWorld.

Guest: Hello everyone, I am Shui Yuanshuozi, the marketing director of PolkaWorld. I am very happy to be here with you today to explore some of the dynamics of Polkadot.

PolkaWorld is the Polkadot Chinese community initiated in June 2019. In September of the same year, we became the only operating service partner of the Web3 Foundation in China. Now we can say that we have gradually grown into the world's largest Polkadot community.

We have been committed to sharing and popularizing the latest developments of Polkadot and some of Polkadot’s innovative ideas. We hope that community users can keep abreast of the latest status of Polkadot through PolkaWorld.

Anyone who joins the PolkaWorld community can find community partners at any time for any technical or operational problems encountered in the Polkadot ecosystem, and we will help everyone as soon as possible.

01

Polkadot aims to build a high-performance, low-cost basic platform

Moderator: Now we will start the Q&A session. First, please give a brief introduction to Polkadot and its development history.

Guest: We all know that the founder of Polkadot is Gavin Wood, the former co-founder of Ethereum. He wrote the Ethereum Yellow Paper, invented Solidity, a high-level language designed for smart contract development, and almost single-handedly completed the early technical architecture of Ethereum. These backgrounds themselves actually gave Polkadot a halo.

Now, Gavin is the founder of Polkadot and Parity Technologies, and also the chief developer of Polkadot. In 2014, he officially announced the launch of the Polkadot project at the Parity Tech conference, dedicated to solving the problems of cross-chain communication and data transmission. In one of his interviews, he said that the birth of Polkadot was, to a certain extent, to fundamentally solve some gaps that Ethereum could not cross.

So, what innovations has Polkadot achieved since 2014, and what groundbreaking feats has it achieved?

Let’s talk about innovation first. Polkadot’s design can be said to be different from any existing blockchain from the bottom-level framework. Bitcoin opened up the basic scripting language, Ethereum implemented smart contracts, and Polkadot hopes to create a more universal blockchain model. At the same time, it must achieve two problems that are difficult to solve in existing blockchains: universality and scalability.

The structure of Polkadot is composed of a relay chain + multiple parallel chains, that is, multiple dedicated blockchains are connected to a unified network to achieve shared security. This unique design is fundamentally different from previous blockchain networks.

First of all, Polkadot is not about writing a blockchain, nor a single-chain structure, but about building a high-performance platform, in the form of a relay chain + n parallel chains, to build a high-performance, low-cost basic platform. Ensure universality, achieve unification, and interactivity by integrating chains of multiple specific scenarios into an extensible network. This integration can, to a certain extent, enable blockchain technology to fully realize its potential. What Polkadot needs to do is to design the underlying consensus logic, ensure the security of the relay chain, and attract more and better creative parallel chains to join the Polkadot ecosystem.

Several major events of Polkadot:

October 2018: Substrate development framework is released

At the 2018 Web3 Summit, Dr. Gavin Wood used the Substrate blockchain development framework to write a new blockchain in 15 minutes. Substrate is a modular blockchain development framework extracted from the development process of Polkadot. It realizes one-click chain launch and provides a very convenient modular framework for the subsequent development of Polkadot parachains, which is convenient for attracting a large number of technical developers to quickly participate.

August 2019 Kusama network launched

Kusama is an early, unaudited version of Polkadot, known as Polkadot’s “canary” network, which aims to test governance, staking, sharding and other functions for Polkadot in a real economic environment.

June 18, 2020 · Polkadot switches to NPoS

June 18, 2020 — The Polkadot network switches to the Nominated Proof of Stake (NPoS) mechanism, which is also the second phase of the Polkadot mainnet launch. DOT holders can apply for validator seats and unlock staking income.

The concept of parallel threads

Gavin first proposed the concept of parallel threads at a Meetup in Shanghai, China, as an alternative to parallel chains. It is also a supplement to parallel chains. You can simply and roughly understand that parallel threads are low-cost hourly rentals, and parallel chains are stable long-term rentals.

It can be said that in order to solve different problems, Polkadot has been iterating step by step towards a more advanced direction.

02

Scarce slots may command high premiums

Host: The parachain slot auction is imminent. Can you briefly share the PLO parachain slot auction mechanism?

Guest: I can briefly talk to you about the parachain slot auction mechanism. If you have any questions, we can discuss it after the sharing.

In simple terms, the parachain slot auction is to bid for the slot by locking DOT. If the bid is successful, these DOTs will be returned after a lock-up period (possibly half a year to two years). If the bid fails, they will be returned shortly after the auction ends.

The purpose of the auction mechanism is to maximize the number of DOTs bonded over the entire two-year period. Slot leasing means that the corresponding DOTs need to be bonded during the leasing period.

The term of a parachain slot is divided into six-month “lease periods”. Each six-month period is an auction for the right to occupy a parachain slot in each of four periods, which together make up the lease time for the next two years.

The four six-month periods could all belong to the same bidder, or they could belong to four separate bidders, or some combination.

Host: What impact will the slot auction have on the Polkadot ecosystem? Why is it so anticipated?

Guest: Slot auction is a new way of playing in the blockchain world. When a new concept is first proposed, it takes time to verify its true market value. Under the premise of high uncertainty, it is possible that some bubbles will arise.

The essence of an auction is a market pricing behavior due to its scarcity. To a certain extent, due to its extreme scarcity, the market will give it a price higher than its own. Therefore, if the enthusiasm has not subsided in the early days, scarce slots may have a high premium.

It is very likely that the first project to bid for the slot will need to pay a higher cost and have the corresponding strength. For example, if a slot is bid for tens of millions of DOTs, then the token value itself will not be low. This is also one of the reasons why it is expected, because it breeds many invisible opportunities. But from a long-term perspective, the parachains on Polkadot will go through a continuous screening, elimination, and iteration process.

03

What Ethereum is doing is saving itself

Moderator: How do you view the competitive development of the Polkadot ecosystem in the blockchain field in the coming months or even years? With the rise of ETH 2.0 imminent, what impact will this have on the Polkadot ecosystem?

Guest: Gavin mentioned in an interview that the birth of Polkadot was to some extent to solve the insurmountable gap of Ethereum. So what exactly is the problem with Ethereum?

The changes that Ethereum has brought to the world are great to a certain extent, and it is a milestone in the blockchain world. Ethereum smart contracts once made Ethereum a success, and the one-click coin issuance made Ethereum the center of attention for a while. The subsequent 1co and Defi once made Ethereum continue to shine, but problems also emerged, such as network congestion and slow block time. These problems are limited by the configuration of Ethereum itself.

So, what Ethereum is doing is always saving itself.

The solution is to expand capacity and find a perfect expansion solution to solve the missing functions of the main chain. In fact, the prosperity of Ethereum is unquestionable, but the core of Ethereum will always be limited by its original architecture and requires various remedial solutions to solve the problems of the framework itself.

Polkadot is a completely different type of ecosystem, a native basic framework designed for speed, efficiency, compatibility, versatility, and scalability. The early construction of infrastructure may be slow, but once this complete system is proven to be reliable and efficient, it will even realize the original intention of interconnecting all chains faster, and the applications and projects that grow on Polkadot may grow exponentially.

Host: Polkadot currently has more than 240 ecological projects, covering wallets, browsers, infrastructure, oracles, expansion solutions, etc. Most of the projects are currently in the early stages. When will the Polkadot ecosystem be able to flourish?

Guest: The premise of explosive growth is the improvement of the foundation. We look forward to the successful launch of the infrastructure designed by Polkadot in its early stage, including parallel chains and parallel threads, so that the ecosystem can gradually prosper.

Host: Thank you for sharing. This event ends here! Welcome to follow Lieyun Finance’s official account and website to get the latest news as soon as possible!