Polkadot aims to solve some of the big issues facing blockchains today, including scalability, governance, extensibility, and interoperability. By allowing a diverse range of chains to pool their security and communicate with one another, Polkadot strives to revolutionize the blockchain space.

Today, we’ve reached a significant milestone with the release of the first Proof-of-Concept (PoC-1) for the Polkadot Network.

What’s in the first Proof of Concept?

At the heart of Polkadot is the Relay Chain, which connects blockchains together by coordinating transactions and consensus between chains. The bulk of the work on PoC-1 focused on the Relay Chain.

Using Substrate, a technology stack to build blockchains, we are able to demonstrate the validation and synchronization of blocks using a Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus algorithm on a testnet. This blockchain is upgradable on-chain and hence requires no forking procedures to keep the network healthy and adaptive. We were able to upgrade runtimes successfully without the need for a hard fork.

Polkadot has also demonstrated successful networking connections that allowed Relay Chain Validators to author blocks. Under the BFT consensus algorithm, Validators are able to validate blocks and come to agreement over state transitions. We are building the state-transition subsystem on WebAssembly, which allows us to use the fast and secure Rust language to build the runtime.

Upon that foundation, we were able to send our first transaction over the Polkadot network, where old friends Alice and Bob traded a few DOTs.

Upcoming Proofs-of-Concept

The PoC-1 runtime lays the groundwork for parachains, the interoperable and scalable blockchains on Polkadot. There is a significant amount of code committed which isn’t yet used but implements parachain candidate agreement and networking.

Parachains, from the Polkadot Lightpaper

In PoC-2 this functionality will be integrated together, and in PoC-3 we will introduce asynchronous communication between parachains along with specialized consensus.

Network Launch: Q3 2019

We are on target to launch the network by Q3 2019, as planned. By bridging chains together, Polkadot will solve major scalability issues that blockchains have been facing, and bring about a new wave of interoperability and choice for the decentralized web.

Today’s release is a culmination of long hours from many developers, and while it’s a substantial achievement, our work continues. As we move toward future proofs-of-concept and testnets, we encourage community members to help us move the project forward and to join us as we work to bring the Polkadot Network to life.

To learn more about Polkadot, read the lightpaper and whitepaper.

Chat with us on Riot in the Polkadot Watercooler.

Follow us on Twitter for updates.

Follow Polkadot’s progress on Github.