What is Polkadot?
Polkadot is a next-generation blockchain protocol connecting multiple specialized blockchains into one unified network called Parachains. Designed as part of a broad vision for a web that returns control to individuals over internet monopolies, Polkadot builds on the revolutionary promise of previous blockchain networks while offering several fundamental advantages.
It is a network protocol that allows any random data, not just tokens, to be transferred across blockchains. Polkadot can transfer this data across public, open, permission less blockchains as well as private permissioned blockchains. It is kind of a sharded heterogeneous multi-chain architecture.
Polkadot’s native DOT token serves three clear purposes: providing network governance and operations, and creating parachains by bonding.
History of Creation
Polkadot founders fall into the group of some elite names in the Blockchain world.
Robert Habermeier, Dr. Gavin Wood and Peter Czaban are the three founders of Polkadot. Robert Habermeier is a Thiel Fellow and co-founder of Polkadot. He has a research and development background in blockchains, distributed systems, and cryptography. Gavin began originating blockchain technology as co-founder and CTO of Ethereum. He invented fundamental components of the blockchain industry, including Solidity, Proof-of-Authority consensus, and Whisper. Peter is the Technology Director of the Web3 Foundation, where he works on supporting the development of the next generation of distributed technologies.Features of Polkadot
The Polkadot protocol connects public and private blockchains, permissionless networks, oracles and future technologies, allowing these independent blockchains to trustlessly share information and transactions through the Polkadot relay chain.Scale
Blockchains in isolation can only process a limited amount of traffic. Polkadot is a sharded multichain network, meaning it can process many transactions on several chains in parallel, eliminating the bottlenecks that occurred on legacy networks that processed transactions one-by-one. This parallel processing power significantly improves scalability and creates the right conditions for increased adoption and future growth. Sharded chains connected to Polkadot are called “parachains” because they run on the network in parallel.Specialize
When it comes to blockchain architecture, one size does not fit all. All blockchains make tradeoffs to support different features and use cases. For example, one chain might optimize for identity management while another might optimize for file storage. On Polkadot, each blockchain can have a novel design optimized for a specific use case. That means blockchains can offer better services, while also improving efficiency and security by leaving out unnecessary code. By building on the Substrate development framework, teams can develop and customize their blockchain faster and more efficiently than ever before possible.Work together
Networks and applications on Polkadot can share information and functionality like apps on a smartphone, without needing to rely on centralized service providers with questionable data practices. Unlike previous networks that operated largely as standalone environments, Polkadot offers interoperability and cross-chain communication. This opens the door to innovative new services and allows users to transfer information between chains. For example, a chain providing financial services can communicate with another that provides access to real-world data such as stock market price feeds for tokenized equities trading.
Upgrade easily
Like all software, blockchains need upgrades to stay relevant and improve over time. However, upgrading conventional chains requires what are called “hard forks”, which create two separate transaction histories that can splinter a community in two and often take months of work. Polkadot enables forkless upgrades, allowing blockchains to evolve and adapt easily as better technology becomes available.Self-govern
Communities on Polkadot govern their network as they see fit, and hold a transparent stake in the future of Polkadot’s network governance as a whole. Teams can customize and optimize their blockchain’s governance to their needs, experiment with new ideas, or swap in pre-built modules for faster deployment. Blockchain governance models can even be perfected and upgraded as needs and conditions change over time.Day by day, the Polkadot ecosystem is growing larger and more robust as teams realize the benefits and efficiency of deploying their project to Polkadot. Polkadot's unique design gives projects more possibilities for innovation and flexible iteration than was ever possible in previous networks. By bringing multiple specialized chains together into one scalable network, Polkadot enables blockchain technology to reach its full potential for real-world use cases, giving rise to new markets and paving the way for future decentralized economies.
DOT supply and Market Capitalization
Let's get into our favorite topic of discussion; the price, supply and market cap section. In terms of supply, DOT had an initial maximum supply but currently the maximum coin supply is increased 1 billion; just to avoid the use of small decimals and make calculations easier. It has a circulating supply of 980,928,105.73 DOT. The current price of each DOT token is $19.02 which makes it's market capitalization nearly $18.69 billion. DOT is ranked as the 9th largest token in terms of market cap by CoinMarketCap.
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Where to Buy?
Oh Man! you don't need to be worried about it as DOT is the 9th largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap. DOT is available for trading across all the major cryptocurrency exchanges around the world; it includes the name of Binance, Huobi Global, HBTC, OKEx and Binance.KR; Coinbase also has recently added DOT in it's crypto list. If you want to invest in DOT, it isn't that much difficult.
Whether Invest or not?
The network is fully decentralized since June 2020 and staking is active. Staking on Polkadot has also started to become popular. Early parachains are currently running on the testnet Rococo. In terms of both valuation and ventures, Polkadot has seen exponential growth over the years since it's inception. Data from PolkaProject shows that the Polkadot ecosystem has 197 projects. Many people believe it as the biggest thing to come along since the Ethereum Blockchain. Polkadot promises to process 1 million transactions / second.The future of DOT, for investing, seems quite interesting as most people believe it as the real competitor to Ethereum(sometimes termed as Ethereum killer) but it has a market cap of only $18 billion while Ethereum has a market cap of more than $330 billion as of writing; so much more space to go up. IT IS one of the most profitable and most trusted cryptocurrencies.
Furthermore, Investing in any types of cryptocurrencies is a subject to high market risk and high volatility. If you are ready to take the risk of cryptocurrencies then you can invest in DOT also. And always Do Your Own Research before investing in cryptocurrencies.
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