What Is Substrate In Polkadot (DOT)?

Table of Contents

• What Is Substrate?
• Polkadot And Substrate
• Substrate And Web3
• Performance, Flexibility, And Decentralization
• Powering The Polkadot Ecosystem

Substrate is a toolbox that allows the creation of special types of blockchains. While not a blockchain, it gives developers the power to create unique blockchains. 

All Substrate-based chains are compatible with Polkadot, allowing access to a rich and interoperable ecosystem of parachains, applications, and resources. 

What Is Substrate?

Substrate allows developers to create their own blockchain, enabling them to incorporate specific required features without tying them down to existing designs. Substrate uses FRAME, a modular architecture that helps to create the different parts of a blockchain, similar to building blocks. This makes the blockchain easy to put together and highly customizable. Substrate is part of a larger vision of Web3 that aims to decentralize the Internet and make it more user-friendly. It also ensures that new blockchains are compatible and can work well together. 

Thanks to Substrate, developers can create specialized blockchains for any use case. It was used by Parity Technologies to create Polkadot, indicating its high performance, flexibility, and robustness. Substrate was created by Parity Technologies to address the limitations and challenges the team encountered when creating Polkadot. 

Polkadot And Substrate

Substrate-based chains can easily be integrated with Polkadot or Kusama and become a parachain or parathread. Substrate is the SDK that allows developers to build parachains, while Polkadot allows the chains to be secured and communicate with one another in a secure environment. However, both are not dependent on one another. Developers can create Polkadot parachains without needing Substrate, while chains built using Substrate don’t need to be connected to Polkadot or Kusama. Instead, these chains can exist as independent chains. 

Substrate And Web3

Substrate helps to fulfill two crucial goals encompassed within the larger Web3 vision. It was the foundational technology that allowed Parity Technologies to create the Polkadot Relay Chain. It is also the de facto SDK for the Polkadot ecosystem, allowing projects to build and deploy their parachains on Polkadot. 

Performance, Flexibility, And Decentralization

Any blockchain requires business logic that defines what it must do. Substrate-based chains are no different. Business logic is provided to these chains through a modular system called FRAME. FRAME allows developers to create, compose, and publish components to form their specialist business logic. Substrate provides developers with a genuinely open canvas and practical components they can compose, reuse, and publish. This allows it to open up a significant potential for innovation. 

One of Substrate’s main goals as a critical component of the larger Web3 vision is to ensure true decentralization. True decentralization means users don’t have to go through intermediaries to use decentralized applications and technologies. Substrate is dedicated to using open, highly adopted, and web-literate technologies such as Webassembly and libp2p.

Powering The Polkadot Ecosystem

In the Polkadot ecosystem, Substrate acts as the backbone that allows the creation of parachains. Polkadot and its parachains can communicate, customize, and share governance functions in a secure environment, ensuring everything runs securely and consistently, enhancing the Polkadot ecosystem.

• Shared Security - Substrate allows Polkadot to provide a shared security model, with the security of all parachains interconnected with the primary Relay Chain.

• Governance - Substrate-based parachains implement their governance mechanisms, which allow decentralized decision-making within each parachain. Substrate’s customizability also allows parachains to model their governance and upgrade their protocols without relying on centralized authorities. 

• Customizable Parachains - Substrate allows developers to create customized blockchains without building anything from the ground up. This allows developers to innovate and experiment, supporting the quick adoption of changing technologies.

• Cross-Chain Communication - The Relay Chain allows parachains to communicate, share data, and transact securely. Substrate allows different blockchains to specialize in specific tasks, facilitating efficient collaboration and overcoming traditional blockchains’ limitations. This will enable parachains to work together more efficiently and serve various purposes.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.