Polkadot Relay Chain
Before you get started on your journey towards becoming an Astar network hacker, it will be beneficial to know about what Polkadot is, and its relationship to Astar. If you are already building on Astar you will not need to go over the sections covering Substrate and how to create a Runtime, but it will be helpful for you to understand the environment, terminology and how to leverage this interconnected network of blockchains, that's right within your grasp.
Polkadot is a multi-chain environment which enables specialized blockchains (called Parachains) to communicate with each other in a secure, trustless environment.
Astar is a blockchain connected to Polkadot Relay chain, specialized for:
- Executing all types of smart contracts.
- Providing a hybrid EVM + Wasm environment with interoperability.
- Incentivizing ecosystem innovation and providing basic income for dApp developers.
- Seamlessly aggregating features or assets from parachains in the ecosystem.
Blockchain Basics
A blockchain is a decentralized ledger that records information in a sequence of blocks. The information contained in a block is an ordered set of instructions that may or may not result in a change in state.
In a blockchain network, individual computers—called nodes—communicate with each other to form a decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) network. There is no central authority that controls the network and, typically, each node that participates in block production stores a copy of the blocks that make up the canonical chain.
In most cases, users interact with a blockchain by submitting a request that might result in a change in state, for example, a request to change the owner of a file or to transfer funds from one account to another. These transactions requests are gossiped to other nodes on the network and assembled into a block by a block author. To ensure the security of the data on the chain and the ongoing progress of the chain, the nodes use some form of consensus to agree on the state of the data in each block and on the order of transactions executed. Read more...
What is Polkadot
To get started, let's kick it off with two short videos that do a very good job at explaining some core concepts around Polkadot. First, watch Bill Laboon, Director of Education and Support at the Web3 Foundation, explain the basics of Polkadot.
Ok, you can’t learn it all in one minute. But how about in 5 minutes? Have a look at this excellent video from DeFi Teller, explaining how Polkadot works.