CanonPolkadot
Polkadot: paper, then practice.
Polkadot, in the paper, is a relay that checks many chains. The offer is shared security. The cost is the relay's own assumptions.
Gavin Wood. 2016. Status: Design paper. Last reviewed: 1 October 2026.
- The paper. Wood's 2016 vision paper: a relay chain that provides shared security and a queue of cross-chain messages, with parachains that keep their own state transition. It is a vision paper. The live protocol has a specification of its own.
- Consensus.
- Polkadot profile.
- Cosmos and Polkadot.
- The stack.
What this chain does not claim
It does not rank a network, quote a yield, or say the live client still matches the paper. The full study keeps the limits. Primary source: Web3 Foundation white paper.