Polkadot (DOT) Proposes Public Utility Parachains to Provide Easy Access to Resources

Polkadot, one of the fast-rising blockchain projects, has announced a new development to its infrastructure that could improve resource allocation on its platform.

Yesterday, the blockchain’s developers shared a press release outlining the need to launch “common good” parachains to optimize some of its core features.

Eliminating the Free Rider Problem

One of Polkadot’s primary features is the use of parachains. Similar to the sharding proposal on Ethereum 2.0, projects can build their parachains and have Polkadot’s DOT tokens act as native currencies to pay for transactions.

They will be connected by the Relay Chain – a central network for executing the ecosystem’s consensus mechanism.

As Polkadot’s press release explained, the developers noticed the “free rider” problem. Essentially, some network participants had found a way to use its resources without paying for them.

The blockchain has certain features – such as external blockchain bridges – that will be useful to all participants, but some might be unwilling to commit funds for an auction since they know that others will benefit from these resources without investing anything.

The blockchain’s developers propose allocating some parachain slots to “public good” features to solve the problem. This development will allow them to circumvent the auction process and include parachains based on a governance proposal passed by DOT stakeholders.

Polkadot Council and Technical Committee – will discuss each individual proposal and put it to a vote, although token holders will get the final say.

Resources for One and All

The development will also see the creation of two types of chains – Public Utility Chains and System Level Chains. The latter will be designed to move functionality from the Relay Chain to Polkadot’s parachains. Some cases will see governance functionality move to a parachain as well. Thus, the parachain will be able to act as a validator for others.

As for the Public Utility chains, they will hold resources that the entire Polkadot ecosystem can use and benefit from. By providing them to everyone, the blockchain will be able to improve inclusiveness and eliminate the underfundedness that would have arisen due to the free-rider problem.

The development hasn’t been launched yet as it would need ratification from Polkadot’s governance.

Polkadot is one of the few blockchains proving to offer real value to users in a world where Ethereum looks less desirable by the day. Along with names like Chainlink and the Binance Smart Chain, it has witnessed significant development over the past few months as it constantly grows to meet users’ demands.