> Polkadot is a heterogeneous multi-chain interchange and translation architecture which enables customised side-chains to connect with public blockchains.

> Polkadot provides unprecedented economic scalability by enabling a common set of validators to secure multiple blockchains.

keyword bingo !

What problems does it solve ? Who's problems does it solve ?

It is solving the problem of scalability. For reference bitcoin can only handle like 5 transactions per second and ethereum like 20 transactions per second. In order to get global adoption of cryptocurrency we are going to need to scale to handle more transactions.

That being said, ETH 2.0 and bitcoin lightning will solve those problems without the need of polkadot.

Dr. Gavin Wood and alot of the other Eth founders left eth cause sharding isn't going to work.

How about optimistic and ZK rollups?

I have a hard time getting excited for a product solving a problem Visa&co solved decades ago.

Decentralization, Scalability, Security

Rate Visa&Co vs ethereum 2.0 based on this.

The whole point is trustlessness

The current system is secure and already scaled. Decentralization doesn't really bring anything to the table other than mental stimulation for nerds

I know - Some of this stuff gets very technical. It provides all the infrastructure for a blockchain. Think wordpress for blockchain developers. The programming language, Substrate, is written on Rust and is turing complete (Obviously). You can exchange information without the need of a third party (Polkadot is decentralized). All the problems of the current 'censoring' and datamining would be impossible in the network do to the possibility of anonymity.

Also, regardless of your feelings of how 'Useful' something is, the crypto market is worth 1.2T. There's millions to be made in DeFI and it's changing the world and propelling previously unknown people into some of the richest people on the planet. Kinda like the original internet, whether you want it or not its coming. Get on board or get out of the way.

> Some of this stuff gets very technical

It isn't about being technical. It is about explaining why rather than what. If I started talking about cuckoo hashing before explaining that I was providing an associative container, it'd read weird. Similarly, one can fully understand the technical jargon and still come away from that material with "but why".

> Get on board or get out of the way

See, this is the stuff that makes every else get aggravated by cryptocurrency startup culture.

I have no idea. What does it even mean and why would I want to do it?