Polkadot: The Bedrock of the New Web

The established ways to conceptualize and build computer systems and human networks connected by software products are imperfect, to say the least, and have led to many complex problems. Some of these problems are purely software-driven, but others go deeper into the ways we self-organize as a society and cannot be reduced to just faulty infrastructure.

A cohort of newer developments in IT — blockchain networks being only a small part of that — has developed in the last decade and is now coming to conceptual and technological maturity. Polkadot and its emerging ecosystem can be viewed as the forefront of that innovation, offering a robust toolset to rethink and rebuild both the software and some of the social dynamics that it facilitates. This innovation is not just about software or architectural principles or a group of overly enthusiastic developers. It’s about a vision of a more secure, more stable and more efficient ecosystem driven by innovators and standing on a new kind of infrastructure. 

This report builds a case for Polkadot and some of the hallmark projects it enables.

Web 3.0, interoperability and layer zero are all terms that get tossed around when describing Polkadot. But what do they mean, and how will they impact the internet? Cointelegraph Research’s latest report explores the blockchain that promises to be the bedrock technology of our future internet: Polkadot. 

For starters, imagine a world where Facebook is replaced by a decentralized social media application built on Polkadot. This is what projects like Subsocial are building on their platforms, which lets users determine what data to keep private and what to share. Users can profit from selling their data stored on a blockchain to third-party companies by minting Ocean Protocol tokens, OCEAN, and selling them on a decentralized exchange such as Polkadex.

Unhappy about the bank charging overdraft fees when your account balance reaches below $0.00? Well, one Polkadot-based project called Acala has built an on-chain automatic scheduler that is similar to a decentralized version of Stripe. This enables users to automatically transfer staking rewards to their wallet address, which can be linked to a physical credit card. This means that a person can be paid for helping to secure a decentralized money and banking system and that the money they earn can be sent to a credit card and be used to buy a coffee at Starbucks.

This report covers: 

• How Polkadot allows blockchains with different structures to co-exist in an interoperable environment with shared security.

• How the system of slot auctions allows projects to compete for the right to remain connected to the network.

• How the ecosystem around Polkadot gave rise to a wide variety of decentralized products, from social networks to cloud computation and prediction markets.

The Polkadot ecosystem and the wider crowd around the Web3 Foundation have been running modernization efforts for several years, which is a long time in the blockchain space, given its pace of innovation and refinement. The bedrock layer for the new internet is now here, running smoothly for over a year and about to launch its first slot auctions for hosted chains. The candidates are lined up, ready to fill many of the key roles in the decentralized infrastructure. The future awaits.

"Polkadot: The Bedrock of the New Web" covers the challenges and opportunities that Polkadot offers to the digital asset market. Don’t miss your chance to learn more about one of the most prospective ecosystems in modern DeFi.