Polkadot Parachain Auction Update & GEAR
Last Wednesday, at the Substrate developer conference, Polkadot announced that almost five years after it’s whitepaper was written, parachains are finally ready for launch. On the 11th of November 2021, the Polkadot Parachain Auction process will kick off, where projects will be allocated slots for building on the Polkadot network. This is an important milestone in fulfilling the initial vision for Polkadot — to build a truly interconnected and interoperable blockchain network.
In this article, we’ll explain what parachains are, what updates were provided at the conference and how GEAR fits in with the news that parachains are ready for launch!
What is Polkadot?
Polkadot is a next-generation blockchain that unites different blockchains into one unified and scalable network. Essentially, Polkadot enables different blockchains to interact with each other. In computer science, this is known as interoperability. By providing the foundation for an interconnected network of blockchains, Polkadot will enable new business models, applications, organizations and even industries to take shape and thrive in one interconnected blockchain ecosystem.
What are Parachains?
Parachains are layer-one blockchain platforms that operate alongside the main Polkadot network. They can be customized for any number of use cases and they feed into the main Polkadot blockchain, called the Relay Chain. The Relay Chain is considered to be the heart of the Polkadot and Kusama networks because it’s what’s responsible for the entire network’s security, consensus and transaction settlements. This makes the Relay Chain the core function for interoperability between separate parachain networks.
What are Parachain Auctions?
Parachain Auctions are auctions that are held on the Polkadot relay chain to determine which blockchains will connect to the parachain slots, as there is a finite number of slots available.
Latest Parachain Auction Update
So far, a few projects have already won parachain slots, with the first five projects scheduled to be onboarded to Polkadot on the 15th of December.
Each auction will assign a parachain slot to a project for a total of 96 weeks, divided into eight 12 week lease periods. The first auction will take place on November the 11th and they will continue at a rate of one auction per week for five consecutive weeks until the final auction takes place on December the 9th.
Polkadot’s native cryptocurrency DOT, which serves as the utility token for network fees, governance, interoperability and bonding will be used for bidding in the upcoming auctions.
How does GEAR fit into this?
The problem with becoming a Polkadot parachain is that there is an extremely high entry cost as thousands of projects are competing and bidding against each other to win one of a limited number of parachain slots. On top of that, deploying as a parachain is very time consuming — it can possibly take up to a year. But GEAR allows projects to enter the interoperable Polkadot ecosystem without having to win an auction or become a parachain. GEAR is a Layer-2 smart contract network that allows anyone to launch a dApp on Polkadot cheaply, easily and effectively. This way, developers can build applications that benefit from existing within the interoperable Polkadot ecosystem without the significantly high financial and time commitments.
Final Thoughts
The news that parachains are now ready for launch is monumental. This marks the beginning of the newest evolution of blockchain technology. But although this significant milestone has finally come, because parachain slots are extremely scarce and demand is so high, they come at a pretty price. Because of that, many developers felt as if their applications will forever be excluded from the Polkadot ecosystem due to the extraordinary costs. However, thanks to Layer-2 protocols like GEAR, developers can enter the Polkadot ecosystem cheaply, efficiently and very quickly.
What does this mean for you? Well if you’re a developer, you can build your decentralized application directly on the GEAR platform in the RUST language, just as you would a typical non-blockchain application. There’s no need to lease a parachain slot because GEAR automatically performs parallel sourcing, and thanks to modern architecture, you can run your dApps directly in web browsers at near native speeds! This makes deploying on GEAR one of the easiest and most effective ways to enter one of the most promising blockchain ecosystems — Polkadot.
If you want to build game-changing blockchain applications in the fastest growing and most promising ecosystem, get started by building on GEAR. You can find more information about what we’re doing here.
Thank you,
The GEAR Team
