Polkadot is a blockchain that uses sharding protocol and that is cross-chain compatible. Its cryptocurrency is DOT and holders have a say in the protocol’s governance. Polkadot is mainly built using the Rust programming language, however, Polkadot protocol has implementation from various other languages, including javascript. Its main framework is Substrate and it compiles to a binary format called WebAssembly(WAsm). Any substrate built chain can be connected to Polkadot and create a Parachain.
Polkadot is founded by the Web3 Foundation. You can learn more about the Polkadot network here.
Who is behind Web3 Foundation.
Polkadot was founded by Dr. Gavin Wood, Robert Habermeier, and Peter Czaban. Dr. Gavin Wood was part of the Etherium co-founders. He created the smart contract coding language Solidity.
You can read more about the Founders of Polkadot here.
How does Polkadot reach consensus?
Polkadot uses hybrid consensus protocol, namely the acronym’s GRANDPA (GHOST-based Recursive Ancestor Deriving Prefix Agreement) and BABE (Blind Assignment for Blockchain Extension). Hybrid consensus splits of the finality gadget from the block production mechanism.
You can learn more about the consensus mechanisms here.
What is Polkadot used for?
Polkadot can process many transactions on several chains in what is called parachains. Parachains are specialised blockchains that use multiple parallelized transactions. In Polkadot, the chain is secured from the beginning by uniting the network of parachains and parathreads that are secured by the Polkadot Rely Chain. You can also connect your blockchain with external networks through bridges. This way, Polkadot can be used with other blockchain technology.
You can learn how to build on Polkadot here.
You can create a smart contract or other substrate-based projects, for example user-specific games, file storage, infrastructure, and social media and community apps, and ethereum bridges. The most popular use case for blockchain is of course the DeFi space. Many DeFi teams are now building on the Polkadot network. You can read more about the Polkadot Defi ecosystem here.
Click here to see the teams building on Substrate.
Practice programming on Substrate here.
How to Mine Polkadot?
Polkadot can be mined on an ASIC miner. An ASIC mining rigs have a motherboar, ASIC chip, and a cooling system. It is built for the purpose of solving as many cryptographic puzzles at a time. You can learn more about mining with an ASIC here.
Polkadot and Staking
Polkadot uses a Nominated Proof of Stake (NPoS) when selecting the validator sets. If you don’t want to become a validator, but still want to stake your DOTs, you can nominate your DOTs to a validator. You can do this int he official Polkadot wallet, Polkadot Js. You can read the step by step tutorial on how to do this here.
Polkadot staking rewards
