The Fractal Protocol on Polkadot

The myriad of use cases for blockchain technology has accelerated the explosive growth of the Ethereum, Polkadot and Cosmos ecosystems in recent years and has been nothing short of spectacular.

But as a project aiming to realise the dreams of an open and fair data economy, the decision to build the Fractal Protocol on Polkadot instead of Ethereum or indeed any other blockchain infrastructure came after the careful consideration of several factors that we shall list below.

Overview

Polkadot is a scalable protocol that connects multiple specialised blockchains together into one unified network. Scalability is achieved through a sharding infrastructure that sees multiple blockchains, called parachains, run in parallel and connect to a central Relay Chain in a secure, trust-free environment.

The Polkadot Ecosystem enables the building and securing of independent public or private blockchains that can also take any form including private consortium chains, permission-less networks, and other Web 3.0 technologies.

Although there are features shared by the Ethereum and Polkadot blockchains in particular, there are several key differentiators to their infrastructure that makes Polkadot better suited to what Fractal Protocol is building. Polkadot has laid part of the foundations for the future of Web3; along with enabling publishers to get paid what they truly deserve, another important part of our mission is to give both users and advertisers better control of and fairer access to data, therefore it was a logical decision to build on a platform that best enables us to accomplish these goals.

Security

When it comes to security, Polkadot surpasses the limitations of individual blockchains by providing an infrastructure for blockchains to connect and benefit from the shared security offered by the relay chain. Providing shared security to many blockchains is no small feat, but Polkadot has solved this problem through complex mechanisms and continuous incentives to Relay Chain validators, whose provisioned security is pooled and distributed among the blockchains connected to it.

Shared security is a value proposition unique to the Polkadot blockchain and the economic security provided by Relay Chain validators is just one of several reasons why we chose to build on Polkadot.

Scalability

Scalability is, unsurprisingly, an important point to address when considering which blockchain to build on. Polkadot can process transactions across multiple chains simultaneously and in comparison to Ethereum, can process 10,000 times more transactions per second; this parallel processing capability gives Polkadot scalability that other chains lack.

Coupled with the ability to create Parachains that control their own transaction fees and that run natively on Polkadot’s Ecosystem (made possible by the underlying framework Substrate), scalability becomes less of an issue altogether.

Fees

The recent snowballing of Gas fees on the Ethereum blockchain has highlighted one of it’s biggest issues — issuing DIDs and verifiable credentials on-chain is currently not cost effective and, until a comprehensive scaling solution is implemented, this does not look set to change for the better.

Building on Substrate-based chain on Polkadot enables Fractal Protocol to issue credentials on-chain for a fraction of the price, with greater lower-level control and flexibility over fee structures and monetary policy. Building on Polkadot has also made it possible to integrate with KILT, a protocol built on Substrate for issuing self-sovereign verifiable, revocable, anonymous credentials.

Interoperability

Polkadot’s high interoperability with different blockchains is revolutionary and the success of DeFi, as a specific interoperability application, shows the true potential of this application.

A truly decentralized web is at the beating heart of Polkadot’s infrastructure, and is a vision for the future that Fractal Protocol shares in kind. Collaborating with other projects in the Polkadot ecosystem such as Ocean Protocol and KILT Protocol is enabling us to work toward a fairer and more distributed internet; the interoperability offered by Polkadot’s Substrate Framework offers more versatility and makes it easier to interact with other independent chains further broadening the scope for collaborative efforts in the Web3 landscape.

Ecosystem

Another big plus of building on Polkadot is benefitting from their developer-centric approach. Substrate is truly a blockchain SDK; there’s the builders’ program and the platform’s public channels are responsive and friendly.

Polkadot is building an ecosystem packed with the tools for developers to create the future of Web3, even offering multilingual workshops such as Substrate Cumulus that enables developers to start Polkadot-like relay chains, register parachains, make cross-chain asset transfers, and convert their own Substrate runtimes to parachains. This investment in free educational material by Polkadot shows their commitment to creating a knowledgeable and thriving developer community.

Conclusion

Polkadot provides us with the tools and infrastructure required for successful development and deployment of the Fractal Protocol, without the compromises we would have to make with other

Platforms. Gavin Wood’s vision for a decentralized web is one that is shared by us at Fractal, and we are excited to have the opportunity to build on a platform that is enabling some of the world’s brightest minds to collaborate in the aims of creating a free internet that benefits everyone involved.

About Fractal Protocol

Built on Polkadot, Fractal is an open-source zero-margin protocol that defines a basic standard to exchange user information in a fair and open way, ensuring a high-quality version of the free internet. In its first version, it is designed to replace the ad cookie and give users back control over their data.

Polkastarter sale information

We will be launching the Fractal Community Sale on the Polkastarter platform on Thursday, 25th February 2021. The specific time will be made public in the coming days.

• 4,000,000 FCL tokens (0.5% of total supply) will be sold in the Community Sale
• Sale price will be $0.10 per FCL
• The tokens will be split into 2 pools: The POLS pool and the community pool. Those wishing to participate in the POLS pool must hold a minimum of 3000 POLS tokens at the time of the Community Sale. For more information on POLS read this article on Polkastarter
• 2,000,000 FCL tokens will be reserved for those in the POLS pool
• 2,000,000 FCL tokens will be reserved for the Standard pool — For more information on how to participate in the Standard pool read this article on Polkastarter
• A total of $400,000 will be raised from the Community Sale
• All $400,000 collected via the community sale will be used to add liquidity to the initial DEX listing on Uniswap shortly after the token sale concludes

This upcoming sale will give both the existing Fractal community, Protocol stakeholders (Users, Advertisers, Verifiers, Insurers, and Attesters) and the future bloggers and builders, those that will enable the free web, the opportunity to join us and be part of the Fractal journey.

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This article does not include elements of any contractual relationship. This article shall not be deemed to constitute a prospectus of any sort or a solicitation for investment or investment advice; nor does it in any way pertain to an offering or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities in any jurisdiction.

For the avoidance of doubt, please note that the Protocol has not been fully developed. Any statements made about the Protocol are forward-looking statements that merely reflect Fractal’s intention for the functioning of the Protocol. There are known and unknown risks that can cause the results to differ from the forward-looking statements.

Fractal does not intend to express investment, financial, legal, tax, or any other advice and any conclusions drawn from statements in this article or otherwise made by Fractal shall not be deemed to constitute advice in any jurisdiction.

Fractal’s intended purpose of the Tokens is to be used as means of payment for the services that will be offered within the Protocol (the “Services”). The purchase, ownership, receipt or possession of Tokens carries no rights, express or implied, other than the right to use Tokens as a means to enable usage of Services in accordance with the then applicable terms of use relating to the Services offered within the Protocol. The Tokens do not represent or confer any ownership right or stake, share, security, or equivalent rights, or any right to receive future revenue shares, intellectual property rights or any other form of participation in or relating to the Protocol, Fractal, Service Providers or any of their corporate affiliates, other than any rights relating to the provision and receipt of Services, subject to the applicable terms, conditions or policies that may be adopted by participants in the Protocol.