An Exclusive Interview with Polkadot Team

(Responded by Urban Osvald, Growth Manager, Web3 Foundation)

1. What is the vision behind Polkadot, and how it’s different from its peers?

Designed as part of a broad vision for a web that returns the power to individuals over internet monopolies, Polkadot builds on the revolutionary promise of previous blockchain networks while offering several fundamental advantages including decentralization, scalability, novelty,  functionality and interoperability between different parachains. This level of transparency and innovations opens up a world where creative use cases have been made and are being made to further the development of the tech sector globally.

Polkadot differs from its contemporaries in its very nature. It is a decentralized web that provides interoperability and sustains multiple blockchains within one framework.  This sharded multichain network enables users to access a diverse range of functionality through increased interoperability.  The Polkadot network is a concise platform that runs different sharded blockchains, known as parachains, simultaneously.  Developers can build their custom solutions on it easily by utilising  Substrate, a blockchain-building framework used in the Polkadot ecosystem.  

Polkadot takes the revolutionary promise of blockchain technology to the next level, uniting an entire network of purpose-built blockchains into a single scalable ecosystem with secure cross-chain communication.

2. What are Parachains, When will they be launched, and what positive changes will they bring in terms of scalability, and innovation?

Blockchains in isolation can only process a limited amount of traffic. Polkadot, on the contrary, 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 process transactions one-by-one. Sharded chains connected to Polkadot are called “parachains” because they run on the network in parallel. This parallel processing power significantly improves scalability and creates the right conditions for increased adoption and future growth. Unlike previous networks that operated largely as standalone environments, this offers interoperability and cross-chain communication. It opens the door to innovative new applications and allows users to transfer information between chains. For instance, a chain providing financial services can interact with another that provides access to real-world data. These features pave the way for a decentralized future that will make every user the owner of their data without any intermediary.

3. What’s your opinion on the growing blockchain ecosystem in India? A lot of projects have been recently launched on Polkadot, How do you see them in terms of innovation?

The Indian fintech ecosystem has seen a constant rise. With the success of UPIs and digital payment mechanisms, it has shown competence in handling secure but complex technologies. India’s mammoth developer base has been leading innovations in the blockchain space for a while now. The Indian government has also been a huge proponent of blockchain as a technology and has been actively pushing for its adoption. This push is also due to the vast presence of developers and blockchain enthusiasts. A lot of companies have turned their eyes on India as their next destination to build innovative tech as India has been globally recognized for its robust tech sector.

Understanding the potential and scope to evangelise more blockchain adopters, we recently launched our first Polkadot Buildathon: India, to encourage young and experienced minds to explore and strengthen their blockchain knowledge and bandwidth.

We are very excited to see very active participation from the Indian developer community with over 1200+ registrations in a little over a month’s time. We think there is a huge potential here and we are ecstatic to be a part of the growth story of Blockchain technology in India.

4. Which Project on Polkadot has managed to get a lot of user tractions lately? Which project can become a killer app of Polkadot looking at recent progress on projects?

Polkadot’s vision has always been to provide individuals with the opportunity to own their data and give their ideas support to customize innovation and development. With parachains, interoperability, and the Substrate framework, we provide an environment conducive to customization and development of innovative products. It has become a developer favourite quicker than was anticipated and therefore, is currently helping in making 100+ projects that will further strengthen the blockchain ecosystem and picking one would be picking a needle in a haystack.

5. Do you think NFT is heading towards a bubble phase, If not then what is the next big innovation in the NFT Space you look forward to?

The success of non-fungible tokens may seem like it came out of nowhere and had its overnight success. The reality is that many teams and projects have been working on this technology and related use cases for years and what we see now is only the culmination of that hard work coupled with success on the market.

NFTs are unique representations on the blockchain, opening up a completely new space for innovation. Although currently most use cases are focused around collectibles, digital art and gaming, we will soon see an outburst of adoption in various different areas and industries. NFTs hold the potential to expand the entire blockchain space in creative ways previously unimaginable.

There are multiple projects in the Polkadot ecosystem that make use of NFTs already. Needless to say, that this technology will play an important part in the innovation process going on in the Polkadot ecosystem.

6. What’s your favorite Indian blockchain project, and why?

With the robust tech and developer ecosystem in India, there seems to be an enthusiastic approach to blockchain. The Indian developer ecosystem has a promising future and the success of a number of Indian tech startups in the blockchain space is great proof of it.

The tech-savvy user community here has shown increased interest in this sector and therefore, India is being looked upon as the next hub for tech innovation with the potential to grow and strengthen the blockchain sector.

With our Polkadot Buildathon: India, we are trying to bring out this exact talent from the developer community and encourage them into making something creative and unique. Innovation in the Blockchain space can hugely impact the overall growth of the economy in India.  The use of remittances, sovereign identities, and financial decentralization will enable millions of people to access more efficient and transparent services. Our aim is to help and support young minds through their journey into the blockchain, dApps, Web3, etc. space.