(Commonwealth Union) _After the launch of Bitcoin in 2009, smart contract blockchains have played a crucial role in the development of extensive functionality. In this sense, Ethereum set the bar high, but cutting-edge software stacks like Polkadot have changed the game.
Just over a year has passed since the first parachains on Polkadot went online in December 2021, and the ecosystem of the platform is still expanding as global interest in Web3 rises. Given that Gavin Wood, the creator of Polkadot, participated in the founding of the leading smart contract platform some seven years ago, the two platforms are inextricably linked.
During the Token2049 conference in Singapore in September 2022, Cointelegraph had a thorough discussion with Parity Technologies chief marketing officer Peter Ruchatz about the developing Polkadot ecosystem. The parachain-leading Polkadot ecosystem shows that blockchain technology will continue to advance through interoperable systems from its conception to its expanding application cases.
As a starting point, Ruchatz concurred that Polkadot and its more established proof-of-stake (PoS) siblings Solana and Cosmos are coexisting peacefully, despite offering decentralized apps (DApps) and projects operating on their infrastructure identical blockchain-based use cases.
By drawing comparisons to how Amazon Web Services supports Netflix while the end-user is unaware of the underlying cloud technology, Ruchatz emphasized the disruptive potential of the fundamentally new technology that influences numerous industries: “I believe that we are once again at a turning moment in technology. At this early stage, there are many experiments being conducted as well as new platforms and methods that will shake out over time. Sometimes having five top platforms, three top platforms, or ideally just one top platform gives you options and choices.”
The ideas, possibilities, and value propositions of Ethereum, Cardano, and Polkadot are fundamentally different from one another, and according to Ruchatz, communicating and explaining why each project is valuable to the public is a significant challenge. Consideration should be given to Polkadot’s prospective use cases and requirements for its parachain capability.
Ruchatz claims that Polkadot’s Relay Chain is a big draw for potential customers because the basic layer enables them to build unique blockchains with their own tokenomics or business characteristics to meet certain demands.
This is a selling point that, in his opinion, sets the platform apart from other all-encompassing, “one size fits all” blockchain protocols like Ethereum, Avalanche, Cardano, and Solana, which, according to Ruchatz, are more geared at enabling DApps and smart contract features and services: “You cannot not construct your own blockchain if you actually want to innovate and explore a wholly new market or use case and have the hunger to build something revolutionary, something fresh and build for the long term.”
