Polkadot Announces Major Update Release; DOT price reacts

Polkadot recently announced the release of a major update and the price of its native cryptocurrency, DOT, reacted following the news. At the time of publication, the price of Polkadot was quoted at US$7.07, down 1.8% in the last 24 hours. In the last seven days, the token has appreciated by 5.5%.

In its official statement released on May 7, the protocol highlighted its latest update called “Asynchronous Backing”, which is about a more optimized approach to how parachain blocks are validated by the Relay Chain.

According to the protocol, Asynchronous Backing has already been enabled on Polkadot. In its statement, the protocol listed the benefits of the update: Blocks are produced 2x faster; 3-5x more extrinsic per block; 6-10x increase in available block space; Increased use of parachain blocks.

Asynchronous Backing—an optimized approach for how parachain blocks are validated by the Relay Chain—has been enabled on Polkadot.

🔹 Blocks are produced 2x faster
🔹 3-5x more extrinsic per block
🔹 6-10x boost in available blockspace
🔹 Higher utilization of parachain blocks pic.twitter.com/fDG9hH6ajr

— Polkadot (@Polkadot) May 7, 2024

“Async Backing increases throughput by 8x without sacrificing security, paving the way for supporting Web3 applications in industries like gaming and DeFi. It brings the scale of Web2 to the reach of Web3, which is crucial for large-scale platforms like Mythical Games,” he said.

According to the protocol, asynchronous support, along with Elastic Scaling and Agile Coretime, are the main components of the scaling solutions dubbed “Polkadot 2.0” by the community. “These components will bring flexible block space allocation and improved performance to Polkadot,” he highlighted.

During the Token2049 conference in Dubai, Gavin Wood, founder of Polkadot, presented a major advancement for the platform with the reveal of the new Gray Paper detailing the implementation of the Join-Accumulate Machine (JAM). This update proposes replacing the relay chain with a more modular and lean structure, promising to increase the effectiveness and overall stability of the network.

JAM’s focus is to provide a robust foundation for parachains, supporting existing and new ones that use Substrate, a popular framework for building blockchains. This will allow developers to expand their capabilities without facing code or state capacity limitations, with the option to add DOT deposits to further expand their functionality.

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