Web3Foundation (W3F) Grants Chainsafe to Construct Third Polkadot Client in Golang

Chainsafe, a tech firm based in Toronto, recently won a grant from the Web3Foundation to create another Polkadot Runtime Environment client using the Golang programming language. At the same time, Argon has endorsed the protocol as a scaling solution.

The Funding

The W3F will fund the Polkadot protocol as part of its goal of creating the decentralized internet. It already commissioned Parity Technologies to create the first two clients in Javascript and Rust. The Rust version is set to launch in Q3 2019.

W3F said that it was important to have the Polkadot protocol implemented on a multilevel scale to enable decentralization and dispersion of knowledge. It would also improve the resilience of the network. Besides that, it would enable shared governance without the need for a central authority. In essence, if the decentralized internet develops an issue with a single language, it will not mean the internet goes offline.

Other Grants And Endorsements

Chainsafe also received an Ethereum Foundation grant to create the Ethereum 2.0 protocol using Golang. At the AraCon conference held in Berlin. Aragon announced that they might soon launch the Aragon Chain on Polkadot. The co-founder of Aragon said that Aragon Chain was still in the early stages. He said that they would continue conducting research for Ethereum scaling. This was because the project was currently hosted on Ethereum. Signs of the announcement came last week when the co-founder of Aragon said that Polkadot was the biggest ETH 2.0 competitor. It has been reported that Polkadot is seeking a valuation of about $1 billion.

The Polkadot Runtime Environment

PRE is a framework where blockchains are developed and run, which includes the Polkadot Relay Chain. It also makes developing para chains on Polkadot easy. It does this by offering reusable components such as a Wasm interpreter and a consensus layer.

Why Golang Language

Golang is an accessible and popular language in the decentralized world. The Go community is healthy and continues to expand. Thus, using Go will attract a new wave of developers that will contribute to the Polkadot tech. Since Polkadot leverage WASM, it is important that all future implementation of the protocol compile WASM. Additionally, there is a WASM interpreter inside GO.

The Grant Process

W3F announced the RFP for implementation of the Polkadot Runtime Environment in July of 2018. They also stated that they would wish to use Golang. The grant was mentioned on social media and in articles online. Various proposals were sent and they eventually picked Chainsafe.

ChainSafe was picked due to its development capabilities. For instance, they are already working on Ethereum 2.0 and on other projects in the Ethereum community. They hope that Polkadot will be bridged to ETHereum upon launch. In the future, they hope that the two protocols can work together to enable the creation of the Web 3.0.

About ChainSafe Systems

This is a team of 23 people working in Ontario, Canada. The team met at an Ethereum developers’ meetup in the city. The company actively researches the blockchain with various projects that contribute to the Ethereum ecosystem.