Bunk

Blockspace. Cores. Coretime. Agile Coretime. And the upcoming Elastic Scaling. But what do these really mean? May sound like another tech marketing. Well, just hear me out, and then decide for yourself. First, a very brief explanation of what we mean by blockspace. It’s essentially the raw material that blockchains produce. A blockchain’s security, computing, and storage capability as an end product. This allows for both secure code execution and decentralized consensus. Therefore, all txns and smart contracts (SC) run securely. ELI5: Think of blockspace as the fuel allocated and secured by the network through its validators, powering the network. Very similar to how Vitalik originally referred to Ether, as a form of ‘’crypto fuel’’, needed to power and execute operations like SCs. So all these chains essentially allocate this resource. But in Polkadot, it works a little differently. Today, Polkadot isn’t just about running more blockchains. It’s a quality blockspace generator, primarily focuses on maximizing the efficiency and security of this blockspace through shared security and Coretime. Quality blockspace? The shared security, the economic security backing it up, the provided composability due to them gives quality blockspace here. ‘’When building multichain apps, mixing high-quality and low-quality blockspace is akin to a chef mixing garbage in with top ingridients.’’ — @rphmeier So, what’s Agile Coretime then? In simpler terms, it’s a scheduling mechanism that ensures the right amount of processing power is available when needed, allowing for efficient blockspace allocation without compromising security. With Coretime, the barriers to accessing Polkadot's blockspace are lifted. It distributes processing power (cores) across multiple rollups as needed. You dynamically scale up as your demand, and scale down accordingly. And still, unlike other chains, you can purchase this quality blockspace up to 1 month in advance. No one else does that. ELI5: Think of Coretime like your computer’s CPU. A CPU has multiple cores, right. Each of which handles different tasks to keep things running smoothly. Similarly, Polkadot uses cores—units of processing power for the various rollups/parachains connected to it. So now, imagine you’re running multiple programs on your computer at once. The CPU allocates its cores to different programs based on usage/need. Some programs might need more cores—processing power (which will come with Elastic Scaling in Polkadot), while others need less. Your computer’s CPU dynamically shifts resources to ensure everything runs efficiently. You are playing the Last of Us. (Yes, GPU handles the hard work which can lead to co-processor topic but another day!) But your CPU still works behind the scenes. And, because you’re a multitasker maxi, you’ve also got Spotify playing Interzone by Joy Division in the background, and a dozen browser tabs open. The CPU makes sure that your UX goes smoothly. Everything stays functional. Your computer doesn’t overheat or crash. That’s what Coretime does for Polkadot. With Elastic Scaling, this will go further. One rollup might need more power to process a lot of txns and demand. It can “borrow” more cores, boost itself. When it’s done, the cores return to the pool to be used elsewhere. Nothing is wasted. Every rollup gets exactly what it needs. What about Polkadot’s previous blockspace allocation model? Until today, blockspace was allocated across parachains/rollups using the crowdloan auction system. The winners secured 2-years of blockspace allocation, getting long-term predictability, shared security, and stability. But the catch: it turns out that many of these rollups didn’t need all that blockspace. It went underutilized, and the 2-year lock-in created a barrier for newer teams to enter. Now, Coretime fixes that. Blockspace scales on demand. Agile, on-demand scaling. So what, when there’s so much blockspace all around? Back to the blockspace. Other blockchains handle it differently. Take Ethereum. Gas fees are used to allocate computational resources. L2 rollups batch txns, post the data to Ethereum which secures and stores it. But Ethereum’s validators aren’t directly aware of its rollups. Not re-executing L2 logic natively. This adds complexity, potential vulnerabilities, and varying security levels between rollups. We don’t see these issues yet, as many rollups today rely on multisig setups to manage upgrades and handle emergency security processes. While these multisigors, relaying messages around, can oversee upgrades and system interventions, rollups still aim to decentralize this further as they mature,. Who knows when. See yourself at @l2beat to understand the state of L2 rollups today. There are many options to fix these vulnerabilities. But with Ethereum’s upgrade and coordination history, finding an optimal fix will take time. In contrast, Polkadot is natively sharded today—doing both execution and data sharding. It is aware of the rollups tapping into the network. Re-executes their state transitions to ensure they are valid. The final security comes from the Relay Chain validators—no different security layers. All connected, unified, safe. And then, there’s Solana. It’s all about high throughput. It focuses on speed and txn volume. The system is optimized for handling as many txns as possible, quickly. And with its culture of building things that today’s users want fast and processing everything at godspeed in the same integrated environment, this works quite well for now. Fail fast, adapt, iterate. But there’s a tradeoff: it scales with better hardware, better validator connections, and highly optimized code. These could potentially hit a ceiling or create high barriers to entry down the road, though Solana is betting that hardware accessibility and costs will fall enough to offset these challenges. But what if you want robust Web3 services but don’t want to compromise on decentralization today? Sure, decentralization may seem like a meme to some, with charts and narratives dominating the space. But essentially decentralization is here for unstoppability. It’s about scaling without fragility. If that’s important to your business, to your service, Polkadot offers best of all trades today—scalable computational power without sacrificing Web3. "the possibilities for building and deploying on Polkadot are more diverse than anywhere else in blockchain." — @domuiri Note that, Polkadot isn’t also perfect. But right now, it offers the best balance of blockspace quality, accessibility, scalability, and security. Curious why it’s not perfect and how it improves? Check out the JAM thread: x.com/0xgoku_/status… Lastly, I briefly mentioned Elastic Scaling above. With this, Polkadot will take a big final step before JAM, enabling Web2-level scalability in Web3 by reducing block production times to under 6 secs and allowing rollups to use multiple cores simultaneously. So, rollups on Polkadot will be able to produce blocks "very" quickly. The only limitation will only lie on the Relay Chain’s side—its cores and how many cores a rollup uses. And as demand increases, the number of cores can also scale with an increase in validator numbers.

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🏁 Esta semana es la Semana Mundial de la Vacunación y junto a @unicef_es tenemos el objetivo de seguir trabajando para vacunar a todos los niños y niñas. Una carrera que no terminará hasta que vacunemos a los millones de niños y niñas que cada año se quedan sin las vacunas que necesitan. Esto solo lo conseguiremos con vuestro apoyo. ¡GRACIAS! #LasVacunasFuncionan #SemanaMundialdelaVacunación #UNICEFEspaña #FernandoAlonso #HumanlyPossible