March 15, 2019

Polkadot for (the very) Dummies

Polkadot for (the very) “Dummies”: an introduction

I am sure most of us (the good, the bad and the… techy, not-so-techy, and the non-techy) have heard of the Polkadot network.

In this brief introductory post, I would like to try and briefly explain, in simple and plain language that anyone will be able to understand, what is Polkadot, and why it is important for you to understand what it is and what good it will do for the blockchain space.

So without much more ado, let’s start:

First is first, Polkadot is a heterogeneous multi‑chain technology…

“Ermmmm. What? You just promised simple language, right?”

Right, but I will be using terminology, and explaining it to you so you can understand what it all means, otherwise, we won’t get far.

“So what do those words mean?”

Well the word “heterogeneous”, simply means that something consists of diverse and mixed ingredients (for example if you put everything that you have in your fridge in one dish - it will be heterogeneous ((please don’t do that, unless you have a strong stomach)).

Multi-chain, simply means that it consists of a number of chains. In fact, Polkadot calls them “parachains”. Those are: blockchains which are its components. Basically, they are “feeding” the information (transactions) into Polkadot.

The Polkadot network also consists of 2 other major “ingredients”. Those are the “relay chain” and the “bridges”. The “bridging” part is easy. It’s basically “does exactly what it says on the box” - it provides a link to other blockchains that have their own consensus (a consensus is the general agreement between the networks peers. For example it could be proof of work or proof of stake). Basically, it’s the same as bridging two cities across a river. If they have a bridge between them, you can go from one to another even if you speak a different language, as opposed to the people in the second city. Which means that you can exchange information between different blockchains using Polkadot, regardless of what “language” they “speak”.

A “relay chain” is something that coordinates (makes sure it works) information exchange between different chains (makes sure that cars are traveling in the right direction on our bridge).

“So what”, one might ask. “What’s the big picture?”

Bear with me. We are getting there.

So know that we have all the “ingredients”. Let’s “mix” them (or rather let’s see what they are able to do). In its essence, the Polkadot network basically is a big interconnecting city, into which many bridges, from many different places, lead to. Imagine, that all of those bridges are coming from cities, where each city has its own language. So imagine all the crazy traffic of information flowing in and out of those cities that can’t properly communicate properly with each other because of the lack of linguistics. Now, imagine that the bridges that lead into our main city (Polkadot) - are kind of “magical” (we will get to this part below). And as soon as you cross the bridge into the main city, everyone begins to speak the same language and to understand each other.

“I hope you still with me, up to this point guys.”

Basically, Polkadot provides the ability for different blockchains to communicate with each other by connecting to itself. This means that it’s a kind of “the blockchain of the blockchains”, that allows everyone to understand each other and to exchange information (transactions) between everyone.

“Well, why is it important?”

Good question.

Well imagine if you had no ability to cook breakfast just because of the fact that in order to open the door of the fridge (or to buy the products for your breakfast and etc…), you would have to do something crazy, like calling the producer of the fridges, asking him for the code to open the door. Then after opening it, realizing that you don’t have a frying pan, but in order to get a frying pan, you need to also open the cupboard… and so on and so forth.

Now let’s stop talking about random kitchen equipment and come back to the blockchain. Today, there is no single technology that connects two, three (and more) blockchains. Especially if they “speak” a different language (have a different consensus). This means that it makes it difficult and impossible to exchange information between different blockchains, without being a bit of a “wizard” (there are actually certain technologies, that are already in place to do so, but… if you don’t have a degree in “rocket science”, I doubt that you will be able to use them).

“But how does the magic happen?”

Well, the magic isn’t actually there. It’s all about “connecting the dots” (pun intended). Within the network, there are a number of “roles” (“actors”, in a more blockchain-techy language), that allows for this to happen. Let’s have a look at them first:

The “validators” (someone that recognizes and confirms something): they make sure the “relay chain” (the main city) is working properly. They do so by backing it up (staking) their DOT tokens (the core token of the Polkadot network). By those, they are talking to other validators and making sure they are “on the same line” and have an agreement (consensus). They also validate proofs from collators (look below), making sure that the “traffic” they are directing into the city hasn’t breached any rules.

The “collators”: They collect information from users (the traffic itself) and “feed” it to the validators (see above) (it should be mentioned that this information is encrypted and no one knows what car you drive, whats its registration number and so on). They do so, by collecting the information from the other cities (at a certain point when they are crossing the bridge).

There are the “nominators”: those secure our main city by making sure that the validators above do their job properly. They also stake DOT tokens. Basically, they are choosing the “best of the best”, making sure that only the validators that “are best at directing the traffic” are selected for the network. For that, they “put their money where their mouth is” (staking the tokens).

And finally, there are the “fisherman”: those guys are a bit similar to the “nominators”, but instead of picking the “good”, they concentrate on the “ugly”. By those making sure that the validators that direct the traffic in the wrong way aren’t to do so.

Of course, there is actually much more to how it all comes together and to how Polkadot makes “the atomic glue” for the different blockchains out there, but in order to keep it simple. I think it’s more than enough “technical” information for the beginning.

What you should understand, is that Polkadots main objective is to help different chains, exchange information and share resources (spread them in a fairer way across networks), while making sure no one shares unnecessary information, and while being secure(!) (this is thanks to the fact that Polkadot actually allows different “cities” to share security. In other words security is more spread out amongst all the cities, rather than being concentrated in one). All that, while solving one of the main issues of the blockchain space: making sure cities can expand and grow safely and quickly, and that the traffic between them flows without jams (this is referred to as “scalability” in blockchain language).

The Polkadot network makes sure that all the “dots” in the blockchain space are connected. Those can range from private chains (cities that have a bad ((authors view)) dictator ruler, who keeps all the money from the tolled roads, by which the traffic flows - to himself) - to public chains (the good cities, where the income from the traffic that flows via tolled roads is shared between everyone), and even up to “far away outposts” in the villages (oracles - those provide blockchains with information from the outside world).

Taking this to the blockchain space - means that a user could exchange any token for another, in the same place, without sharing his information with outside resources and paying unnecessary fees (and this just one example of many). And taking this outside the blockchain space, could mean - that someone, for example, can make sure his offspring gets his monthly allowance tuition fees after he completes every semester and gets good grades (basically by connecting a university, a bank account and some technological “magic” into which we will not go in at this point, which is called a smart contract).

So, the Polkadot network is going to be revolutionary in many ways. One of them is (as it says on the box) by “connecting the dots” between other blockchain and making sure that users can communicate without having a hard time. We have touched briefly on some of what is “under the hood”, but of course, those are only the basics, and there is much more. So I strongly recommend that you overcome your “technological” fear, and read their lightpaper at the very least.