Gavin Wood Unveils the Next Era of Polkadot at Decoded 2023: Transitioning from Blockchain to Blockspace
The blockchain and cryptocurrency community recently witnessed an extraordinary event, Polkadot Decoded 2023, that took place in Copenhagen. This highly anticipated conference brought together industry experts, developers, and enthusiasts to explore and discuss the latest advancements in the Polkadot ecosystem. With over 100 speakers and a showcase of 100 blockchain projects, Polkadot Decoded generated a great deal of excitement and anticipation within the community.
Gavin Wood introduced Polkadot 2.0 during his talk at the Polkadot Decoded conference, emphasizing a shift in perspective towards the new version. The talk discussed the progression from Bitcoin to Ethereum to Polkadot as a journey of scalability and increased power. Polkadot was described as a multi-core supercomputer, offering efficiency and scalability, with a focus on building a system that provides secure, trustless, and feature-rich applications.
Event overview
Polkadot Decoded took place over the course of several days, serving as a platform for networking, knowledge sharing, and collaboration. The event featured insightful presentations, panel discussions, and interactive sessions, creating a vibrant atmosphere of innovation and exploration. Attendees from around the world converged to gain valuable insights and connect with like-minded individuals passionate about decentralized technologies.
Keynote speakers and sessions
The conference featured an impressive lineup of keynote speakers who shared their expertise and vision for the future of Polkadot. Notable sessions included Gavin Wood’s groundbreaking keynote address, where he unveiled the roadmap for Polkadot 2.0.
Other sessions delved into various topics such as blockchain interoperability, scalability, privacy, and governance. The discussions were thought-provoking and shed light on the challenges and opportunities within the Polkadot ecosystem.
Gavin Wood’s speech highlights
In his keynote speech, Gavin Wood outlined the proposed changes for Polkadot 2.0, focusing on the dynamic procurement of “cores” and a paradigm shift in Polkadot’s architecture. Wood explained that the current lease model for cores would be replaced with a system of selling “core time.” This approach offers developers increased flexibility through two types of sales: bulk and instantaneous.
The monthly sale of “core time” enables developers to scale block space as needed, while the “pay as needed” option allows for on-demand access to resources. This newfound flexibility has the potential to unlock innovation, increase capacity, and improve resource management within the Polkadot ecosystem.
Gavin emphasized the agility of this approach, as market demand will determine the details, reducing the potential for long-term design flaws. Furthermore, the new model could potentially increase the liquidity of DOT tokens by reducing lockup periods, although specific details are yet to be determined.
The introduction of “bulk core time” marks a significant milestone, as block space is finally being traded as a true commodity, accessible and utilized as needed without the burden of managing a large chain. This innovation levels the playing field for new teams by reducing barriers to entry and fostering innovation. The proposed changes hold the promise of transforming DOT into more than just another token; it becomes a gateway for the massive influx of Web2 businesses into Web3.
Björn Wagner and Rob Habermeier speeches
Björn Wagner, CEO of Parity, delivered a keynote at the Polkadot Decoded event, expresses gratitude for the Polkadot community, and discusses the driving force behind Polkadot’s mission to create a decentralized internet.
Wagner also highlighted the three pillars of Polkadot, emphasizes the importance of building a strong technical foundation, and calls for further improvements in developer experience to capitalize on the platform’s capabilities.
Polkadot co-founder Robert Habermeier emphasized in his speech the significance of a secure, flexible, and cost-effective blockspace ecosystem that can cater to the diverse needs of developers, businesses, and consumers on a global scale, highlighting the upcoming release of on-demand parachains as a unique feature of Polkadot’s blockspace offering.
Habermeier highlighted the importance of optimizing blockspace consumption, enabling easy deployment for startups and ensuring scalability without unnecessary costs, allowing projects to grow and thrive.
New developments and updates
Gavin Wood’s keynote speech at Polkadot Decoded showcased several groundbreaking developments and updates that are set to shape the future of Polkadot. These include:
- Core rental: Introducing the concept of renting computing resources to increase computational power within the network
- Accords: Voluntary treaties across multiple chains that guarantee the faithful execution of agreed logic, offering a decentralized framework for managing digital assets and agreements, and providing a robust foundation for decentralized applications.
- Project CAPI: Serves as an app-centric middleware facilitating the development of Polkadot-based applications that can seamlessly operate across multiple chains through the connection of multiple light client instances.
- Hermit Relay: Enables the transfer of all user-level functionality, including balances, staking, governance, and identity, to system chains, while the concept of core rental allows Polkadot functionality to extend across multiple parachains, thereby liberating the Relay-chain. These developments aim to create a resilient application platform and contribute to building a resilient world.
- Light Clients: Lightweight software components that enable users to connect to blockchains without the need to download the entire blockchain, improving accessibility and usability, emphasizing due to the vulnerability of centralized RPCs and the prevalence of RPC usage
- Smoldot: An alternative lightweight Substrate and Polkadot client.
- ZK Primitives: The development of ZK Primitives focuses on simplifying the creation of a library of advanced and high-performance zero-knowledge (ZK) primitives. The initial implementation of ZK Primitives is nearing completion, offering privacy features for on-chain collectives, including Fellowship
- Sassafras Consensus: A new forkless block-production consensus algorithm, bringing several improvements to the Polkadot network compared to the present BABE and Aura. It enhances security and randomness, enables high-performance transaction routing, improves parachain performance and user experience, minimizes MEV (Miner Extractable Value) concerns, and prevents front-running through encrypted transactions.
- Internode Mixnet: A network infrastructure that provides a shielded transport mechanism for short messages within the Polkadot ecosystem. It prevents the leakage of IP information associated with transactions and serves as a general messaging system facilitating communication between users, chains, and OCWs (Off-Chain Workers).
- Human Decentralization: The distribution of power and decision-making authority among individuals within decentralized systems, promoting a more inclusive and democratic network
Integrations and partnerships
Polkadot Decoded also witnessed the announcement of several exciting integrations and partnerships, highlighting the platform’s growing ecosystem and collaborative efforts.
Some notable collaborations include:
- Energy Web and Deloitte: Energy Web welcomed Deloitte as a new ecosystem member, expanding their collaboration in the energy sector
- Vodafone UK and Energy Web Chain: Vodafone UK embraced decentralized identifiers (DIDs) on the Energy Web Chain, showcasing real-world implementation of blockchain technology in the telecommunications industry
- Vodafone UK and Aventus: Vodafone partnered with Aventus to optimize supply chain and logistics processes, aiming to reduce missing baggage at Heathrow Airport by 80% and improve overall efficiency
- Polimec, Deloitte, and KILT Protocol: Polimec joined forces with Deloitte and KILT Protocol to introduce reusable KYC credentials and enhance regulatory-compliant fundraising on the Polimec platform. This will be the first use case of Deloitte’s reusable KYC and KYB credentials.
- Tokenized Tesla on Polkadot: The world’s first tokenized Tesla is set to join the Polkadot ecosystem through the peaq network and ELOOP ONE car-sharing startup, showcasing the potential for asset tokenization on the platform
- Sovereign Nature Initiative and Moonsama: Sovereign Nature Initiative and Moonsama partnered to bring data about wild lions in Kenya into virtual realms, supporting real-world conservation efforts through immersive experiences
- Evrloot and Ajuna Network: Evrloot revealed its new game, Stardust Colonies, which will be built on the Ajuna Network parachain, highlighting the growing builder activity in the Polkadot ecosystem
- MeWe, with its goal to become the largest decentralized social media platform globally, revealed details of its plans to migrate its 20 million users to Web3 using Frequency parachain
Conclusion
Polkadot Decoded 2023 has left an indelible mark on the blockchain industry, ushering the Polkadot ecosystem into an era of innovation and collaboration. The event showcased groundbreaking developments and transformative concepts that will reshape decentralized technology.
With the upcoming Polkadot 2.0, the development of dApps will be revolutionized, reducing the cost of on-chain logic maintenance and enhancing developer experiences. Solving the complex challenge of interchain communication, Polkadot introduces Accords powered by SPREE, enabling seamless crosschain calls and unlocking a multitude of use cases.
Polkadot’s versatile architecture, scalability, and emphasis on human decentralization position it as a driving force for broader blockchain adoption and decentralized application growth.
- Strengthen Polkadot by nominating your DOT tokens to POLKADOTTERS, community builders for the Polkadot ecosystem
- Support Polkadotters Shrimp and Polkadotters Octopus on Polkadot and be a part of a more secure Web3 future
- Delegate your DOT or KSM to Polkadotters for easy participation in the on-chain governance via Talisman or Nova wallet
