Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood of Polkadot had a recent discussion on Polkadot and Ethereum 2.0., talking about common grounds between the two ecosystems, as well as differences and similarities. The chat had a small live audience and this is what Wood and Vitalik had to say about their projects.
Similarities and Differences Between Polkadot and Ethereum
As Wood stated during the discussion, Polkadot and Ethereum are not direct competitors as Polkadot aims to become a meta protocol with a lower level of abstraction when compared to Ethereum. The main goal for Polkadot is to address governance, interactivity, and upgradeability. Vitalik agreed with Wood, stating that Polkadot tests different economic and technical theses, while Ethereum is not going in the direction of creating active governance.
Interoperability Options for Ethereum and Polkadot
As Vitalik Buterin said in the discussion, the two projects use Web Assembly, which provides the opportunity for interoperability. Wood added that there is also a technical degree of ability to share resources between Polkadot and Ethereum, also stating that there are numerous similarities between the two projects. Some of these similarities would allow and enable interaction between the two projects, including the use of algorithms from the same family of algorithms, protocol levels, parallel chains, and networking.
The Use Cases for Ethereum and Polkadot Communities
As Vitalik said in the discussion, Ethereum is targeting developers who are building small applications to enable inter-communication on the top Ethereum’s layer. Ethereum is also preserving protocol guarantees and is experimenting with various technical approaches when it comes to particular trade-offs on the network, for instance paying GAS on the network. Wood added that Polkadot focuses on mutability and upgradeability. Gavin Wood also said that both Ethereum and Polkadot are focused on developing their protocols on a tech level, while their goal is not to get rich through blockchain but to change the world with this technology.
Image credits: Cover photo taken from Stanislaw Zarychta on Unsplash
