With strong growth, Web3 has launched advanced technologies including Parity Ethereum, Parity Substrate and Polkadot that help shape the vision of the future.
What is Substrate? The following article will provide an overview of substrate and its role in the Web3 ecosystem.
What is substrate?
Substrate is a software development kit launched by Dr. Gavin Wood that allows developers to build custom blockchains with scalability and compatibility for different purposes.
Projects can create custom blockchain components based on the Substrate’s frame system, freely combining techniques and easily connecting governance functions, accounts, smart contracts to the Substrate library.
With superior features, Substrate makes the process of building projects on Parachain simpler, faster and more flexible.
Structure of Substrate
In the latest 2.0 release, substrate’s structure includes:
- WebAssembly Runtime Tool (WASM)
- Programming language: Rust
- Development modules
- Network protocol: Lib P2p.
- Consensus algorithm: Hybrid PBFT/Aurand
- Hashing function: Blake2d
- Randomness beacon: Collective coin flipping
- Verification algorithm: Edwards-Cure Ed25519
In particular, to be compatible with any blockchain, some platform parameters can be adjusted based on the integrated database. Beside that, unlimited permissions gives developers maximum freedom to create and customize blockchains precisely for application or business logic.
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Outstanding features of Substrate
- High compatibility
Substrate allows multi-layer deployment and decentralization, multi-chain connectivity, and multi-feature integration which is compatible with many different blockchain platforms. Besides, developers can upgrade their blockchain without hard fork.
- Modular P2P Stack
The P2P structure ensures high security and saves time when data is streamed directly on Peer-to-Peer networks without relying on a single server.
- Multi-platform database
Substrate provides access, use, and storage of various data sources from diverse platforms.
Substrate and Polkadot
Polkadot is a protocol that allows two or more blockchain systems to connect with each other and parachain helps the system to operate smoothly.
Polkadot and Substrate are not dependent on each other. Parachains can actually be built and maintained without Substrate.
Besides, Substrate is exclusive to projects in Polkadot’s ecosystem. It is unnecessary for blockchains using Substrate to connect to Polkadot. Developers can use Substrate to build new blockchains which are separate from Polkadot.
However, Substrate is a blockchain SDK framework which you can create custom parachains easily when they are integrated with Polkadot.
Projects on Substrate
The number of development projects on Substrate increases with more than 150 projects, such as Chainlink, Astar Network, Kusama, Acala Network, Equilibrium, Kylin Network, ChainX, Moonbeam,…
Conclusion
Substrate is an optimized tool for building a full-featured custom blockchain that make it easier to access to the Polkadot ecosystem as well as other ecosystems. With high scalability and compatibility, Substrate is a pioneering technological step for Web3’s vision in the future.
