Published inPolkadot Network·Oct 12Fungible Assets on Asset HubThe vast majority of people are used to identifying assets by name or symbol, like “Tether” or “USDT”. If you’ve been around Ethereum for any length of time, you are probably used to zero-ex contract addresses. Then Polkadot’s Asset Hub hosted asset functionality directly in-protocol, with simple integers as asset…Blockchain10 min readBlockchain10 min read
Published inPolkadot Network·Aug 29, 2022Proposal for Common Good ParachainsJust over one year ago, Statemine became fully operational on Kusama, allowing anyone to create fungible and non-fungible asset classes. Since then, Statemine has opened five bi-directional HRMP (aka XCMP-Lite) channels with other parachains and had two assets deemed “sufficient” by the Kusama stakeholders. …Polkadot7 min readPolkadot7 min read
Published inPolkadot Network·Dec 18, 2021Statemint Becomes First Common Good Parachain on PolkadotThe Polkadot community has approved the upgrade of the Shell parachain to Statemint, Polkadot’s parachain dedicated to asset functionality. The Shell parachain contains almost no logic, except an XCM interface that listens for messages from the Relay Chain, but ensures that the finality guarantees from Polkadot are working properly before…Polkadot4 min readPolkadot4 min read
Published inKusama_Network·Oct 19, 2021Statemine Upgrade Launches New Phase of Parachain FunctionalityThe Kusama community has just voted to upgrade the runtime of the Statemine parachain, Kusama’s instance of Statemint. Statemine was Kusama’s first featureful parachain. Like the launches of Kusama and Polkadot themselves, the launch of a parachain is a multi-step process. In case you missed its launch, Kusama ran with…Statemine3 min readStatemine3 min read
Published inPolkadot Network·Mar 9, 2021“Statemint” Generic Assets Chain: Proposing a Common Good Parachain to Polkadot GovernancePolkadot’s and Kusama’s on-chain governance can grant parachain slots by public referendum, instead of determining the slot winner via its auction mechanism. …Polkadot5 min readPolkadot5 min read
Published inPolkadot Network·Mar 5, 2021Common Good Parachains: An Introduction to Governance-Allocated Parachain SlotsThe Polkadot network has a number of teams developing parachains, each optimized for its own domain. These parachains specialize in smart contracts, identity, DeFi, robotics, bridges, and more. …Polkadot5 min readPolkadot5 min read
Published inPolkadot Network·Jun 9, 2020Polkadot Governance“Living is motion, and motion is change and alteration and therefore the only alternative to motion is un-motion, stasis, death.” — Faulkner Polkadot and its parachains will all need to change over time to stay relevant, and we designed Polkadot to have a transparent and sophisticated process to not only…Governance15 min readGovernance15 min read
Published inPolkadot Network·Feb 6, 2020The Path of a Parachain BlockPolkadot guarantees valid state transitions for its member parachains. Beneath the surface, an orchestra of nodes, from validators and collators to fishermen and full nodes, play their parts to deliver parachain blocks to the final Relay Chain. Parachains are sovereign blockchains connected to the Polkadot network. Like other blockchains, parachains…Polkadot13 min readPolkadot13 min read
Published inPolkadot Network·Dec 18, 2019Polkadot Consensus Part 4: SecurityThis is part 4 in our Polkadot consensus series. See part 1 for the introduction, part 2 for a discussion about GRANDPA and part 3 for a discussion about about BABE. So far, we have discussed how BABE creates blockchain candidates and GRANDPA finalizes them. We know that we need…Blockchain6 min readBlockchain6 min read
Published inPolkadot Network·Dec 18, 2019Polkadot Consensus Part 3: BABEThis is part 3 in our Polkadot consensus series. See part 1 for the introduction and part 2 for a discussion about GRANDPA. Blind Assignment for Blockchain Extension (BABE) is a block production engine that was inspired by Ouroboros Praos, another proof-of-stake protocol. …Blockchain5 min readBlockchain5 min read
