Parachain have to be a blockchain, Plasm layer2 can be a single database | PW Interview
“Technology extends the human being. AI extends our brain. Blockchain extends our society.” PolkaWorld recently interviewed Sota Watanabe, CEO of the Polkadot eco project Plasm, to talk about how Sota entered the blockchain space and involved in Polkadot ecosystem.
1.How did you enter the blockchain industry
After joining my college, I have traveled many countries such as India, China, Russia, and US by myself. During the travel, I saw a lot of social problems and the local lives. I have learned that there is such a big gap between rich and poor in the world. And, for me, it seems that the capitalism doesn’t solve this problem but actually it accelerates the problem. Technology extends the human being. AI extends our brain. Blockchain extends our society. I would like to update the mechanism with this technology. I am an optimist. I believe that technology can update the world.
2. How would you simply and easy to understand explain to your friends what the Plasm network is?
The Web we use today is broken. We do not control our data. How much you could earn with your data? The answer is 0 because your data is managed by big enterprises and they make profits instead of you. We must rebuild Web for human being. To do so, we need decentralized technologies like blockchain. The biggest problem we face when we use these technologies is scalability. To solve this problem, we are building a higly scalable blockchain called Plasm Network on Polkadot.
3.How did the idea of Plasm come about？
I guess I could explain in q2
4. Where Plasm is now？
We have done our first lockdrop and more than 380 participants locked around $3M worth ETH. We are official going to lauch our mainnet on May 8th! And we are working hard to be one of the first Polkadot Parachain in 2020.
5. How do you know Polkadot and Substrate in the first time？
When Gav and Polkadot team come to Japan, I was one of the meetup organizers. Then I realized the possibility of Polkdot back in 2018.
6. What do you think is the biggest characteristic of Substrate?
The biggest features of Substrate is upgradability. If you use Substrate, we don’t need hard forks anymore. Then we can import the most advanced technology in the future without significant breaks. Darwin said that “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”
7. What is the biggest help that Substrate give Plasm?
We are building Plasm Network on Substrate. It enable us to connect Plasm to Polkadot. Then we can get the shared security and inter chain message passing known as XCMP.
8.We all know Polkadot has already solve the scalability through parachains, so why we still need Plasm?
Polkadot is taking a sharding approach. This brings hierachical scalability. Plasm brings virtical scalabilities by implementing Plasma and State Channels. Sharding is less flexible but more united. Plasm is more flexible but less united. Parachain have to be a blockchain. Plasm layer2 doesn’t need to be a blockchain. It can be a single database. This is a big difference. In addition, from the DApps developeres’ perspective, technically they can not make DApps on Polkadot because Polkadot doesn’t support smart contracts by design. They will build DApps on the top of a Parachain. For them, scalability must be important to think about. Polkadot isn’t competitor. Polkadot complement Plasm Network vice versa
9. What’s the most exciting thing about Plasm recently?
WE ARE GOING TO LAUNCH THE MAINNET ON MAY 8TH. STAY TUNED!
Follow us on Twitter：@polkaworld_org
Plasm Twitter：@Plasm_Network
