If you are interested to the previous posts of this series, check it out here:
What is it?
Polkadot is a scalable blockchain, which guarantees interoperability between different networks as well as a secure protocol for connecting different chains. It is a Web3 project, which aims to develop IT infrastructures for a decentralized web, at the center of which, together with other projects, will be Polkadot. We are facing a monumental project, with very ambitious objectives and which also aims to offer an important basis for the development of autonomous and collateral projects. Without going into overly technical concepts, the goal of scalability translates into the ability to host more and more projects, ensure greater connectivity without increasing consumption and costs and without slowdowns. Polkadot scalability is one of the main features of DOT network, but it's not the only one. Talking about the concept of interconnetcion between blockchains, there are actually several projects that offer IT infrastructures for connecting blockchains that otherwise couldn't talk to each other. The peculiarity of Polkadot lies in offering interfaces that also allow the transmission of raw data, that is, non-tokenized data. This can be extremely important for data useful for triggering a smart contract, which comes for example from exchanges or other types of data centers. Polkadot network doesn't need hardforks too. In order to implement significant innovations within the project, older generation blockchain projects had to split to continue on the project. This is a slow process, expensive in terms of resources and often confusing. Polkadot (DOT), on the other hand, is a project that allows for the implementation of innovations in the running, or rather in production, without the need to split the tree and leave another as abandoned. A structure of this type, which today is actually common to many and different blockchains, makes Polkadot much more useful in case you want to implement the innovations that the market requires. It is important to talk about the founders who animate the project too. Among these is Gavin Wood, whom the most passionate about cryptocurrencies will remember being one of the founders of Ethereum. An important figure within the cryptocurrency community and inventor of the Proof of Authority and Whisper protocols.
How does it work?
Before being a cryptocurrency (DOT), Polkadot is one if the latest generation blockchain protocol, which has the main purpose of allowing interconnection between different chains, internal or external to the project. There are several characteristics that we could define as unique to the project:
- Scalability: Classic blockchains can only perform a finite number of operations and can quickly become too expensive in terms of transaction costs or slow in processing information. Polkadot instead has a shared multichain design, which means that it can process information and transactions by relying on different blockchains in parallel. This allows to eliminate at the root the phenomena of bottlenecks - which are one of the main problems of the old generation blockchains - and to be able to have infinite scalability on paper.
- Flexibility: Another typical problem with older generation blockchains is that they are highly incapable of adapting to uses other than those for which they were intended. In Polkadot, on the other hand, flexibility is by design. Parachains can be developed, which means they can operate according to their own rules and adapt to the needs of the project. This puts enormous potential in the hands of developers, which allows the creation of projects that other types of systems would never have allowed. Allowing sovereignty to internal projects makes Polkadot crucial within the new wave of decentralized finance. That is, systems that aim to offer bank-like services on the blockchain. Those who are comfortable with the terms borrowed from computer science, could imagine Polkadot's parachain and general rules as libraries that can be easily inserted into their projects.
- Sharing of information and features: Just as if they were software that share the same operating system. One of the most important things that can be shared are transaction validations. Those who want to develop their own distributed App, can rely on the entire network that we have just described, behind payments in DOT. The crucial importance of DOT is connected, but it is a concept that we will express in greater detail below, to the use that is made of the platform.
Where to store it?
The best hot wallets for Polkadot are Polkawallet, Polkadot.js, TrustWallet and Atomic Wallet. If you want more security, a cold storage like Ledger or Trezor is the right choice.
Pros&Cons
*DISCLAIMER* These lists are subjective, it depends from person to person
Pros
- Functionality
- Scalability
- Very innovative project
Cons
- China (at the moment a large percentage of DOT is held in China, and we all know that China is very unpredicatble if we talk about crypto)
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