Polkadot’s Parachains
Let’s explore how Polkadot’s parachains work – and how they can help wider integration of the tech happen sooner.
According to developers, a parachain is a first-layer data structure that exists within the Polkadot ecosystem. It can take the form of a blockchain – but not necessarily. They are beautifully flexible: each parachain can have its own token and structure, be fine-tuned for a specific industry (e.g. logistics or gaming), and/or offer a particular service. Besides that, there’s also an option to use a smart contract-powered governance model to solve any disputes that might occur on the parachain.
Features of Parachains and Problem Solving
One of the key features of parachains, though, is that they can seamlessly interact with one another, offering an elegant solution to the interoperability problem. For example, one can move pieces of data or tokens between two or more parachains, feed them information from external sources, or use it to interact with other blockchains via cross-network bridges. Sounds impressive, right?
What about the scalability issue? Well, parachains allow processing transactions in parallel, similar to how CPU cores work in a computer. As they are located on the first level of the system, that means you can achieve top-notch scalability without using second-layer services.
If we add to that to the lack of gas fees – we will get an elegant, turnkey solution to the main technical issues that hinder the adoption of distributed ledger technology.