### What is Polkadot? Polkadot is an open-source project founded by the Web3 Foundation, a Swiss Foundation founded to facilitate a fully functional and user-friendly decentralized web. Polkadot is a sharded protocol that enables blockchain networks to operate together. The DOT token serves three distinct purposes: governance over the network, staking, and bonding. Polkadot aims to enable a completely decentralized web where users are in control. Polkadot is built to connect private and consortium chains, public, and permissionless networks, oracles, and future technologies. Polkadot aims to facilitate an internet where independent blockchains can exchange information and transactions in a trustless way via the Polkadot relay chain. Polkadot aims to make it easier than ever to create and connect decentralized applications, services, and institutions. The Web3 Foundation is partnering with entities to build Polkadot and foster the development of services and applications that will run on it. Web3 Foundation is providing grants for the development of the ecosystem. ### How it works Scale: Polkadot is a sharded multichain network, meaning it can process many transactions on several chains in parallel. This parallel processing power improves scalability. Sharded chains connected to Polkadot are called “parachains” because they run on the network in parallel. Specialization: On Polkadot, each blockchain can have a novel design optimized for a specific use case. By building on the Substrate development framework, teams can develop and customize their blockchain faster and more efficiently. Interoperability: Networks and applications on Polkadot can share information and functionality like apps on a smartphone. Polkadot offers interoperability and cross-chain communication. This allows users to transfer information between chains. Governance: Communities on Polkadot can customize their blockchain’s governance to their needs. Blockchain governance models can be upgraded as conditions change over time. Upgrade: Polkadot enables forkless upgrades, allowing blockchains to evolve and adapt as new technology becomes available.