Polkadot founder Gavin Wood is proposing a major shift in the way blockchain networks allocate resources.
The initiative is called reimagining the network’s architecture as a federation of sovereign chains connected by treaty-like “agreements.”
During the fourth Decode conference, Wood laid out his vision, which would found to another project he co-founded.
Rethinking Polkadot’s infrastructure
Following the launch of Polkadot in May 2020, Wood transitioned from the CEO role to This recommendation was made to the network’s chief architect in October 2022. Polkadot’s core primitive — parachain auctions — wasn’t revealed until November 2021 during the previous cryptocurrency bull run. The move led to a massive price increase for Polkadot’s native token, DOT, but has since faced issues due to the competitive and volatile environment of parachain auctions.
From Parachain to Core
Wood sees Polkadot as a multi-core computer, with cores reserved for parachains. Central to the Polkadot 2.0 vision, however, is the “space” or resources required to move from a chain of concern to a chain of concern. Wood emphasized the need for a more agile system, noting that the slot machine auction model, while attractive, also has perceived and practical barriers.
Under the proposed framework, “core time” would be allocated through the market. This market will cater to both on-demand (immediate) and long-term (volume) needs. Wood suggested that these monthly blocks of core time would be represented by NFTs, which could be subdivided to let owners of the batch time distribute computation across Polkadot cores.
This means that all currently existing leases will continue under the new system, with volume pricing requiring governance to initialize.
Moving to an application-centric model
The Polkadot 2.0 proposal is entirely application-centric, not chain-centric. Wood pointed out that Polkadot is ultimately a platform for users to build applications that should ideally span chains seamlessly from both a user and a developer perspective.
Robustness of Polkadot Allows deployment of pseudo-networks rather than just applications, which requires extra attention to collators and network uptime. In some cases, it may be preferable to deploy smart contracts directly on the core, thereby bypassing the parachain concept entirely.
The proposed Polkadot 2.0 initiative represents , focusing more on resources (space) rather than chains. By redesigning the resource allocation model, Polkadot hopes to make the system more agile, focusing on applications and user experience.
