Why We're Building on Polkadot¶

After extensive research, we decided to build Moonbeam using the Substrate development framework and to deploy Moonbeam as a parachain on the Polkadot network.

Substrate Blockchain Framework¶

Substrate is a good technical fit for Moonbeam. By building on top of this framework, we can leverage the extensive functionality that Substrate includes out-of-the-box, rather than building it ourselves. This includes peer-to-peer networking, consensus mechanisms, governance functionality, an EVM implementation, and more.

Overall, using Substrate will dramatically reduce the time and implementation effort needed to implement Moonbeam. Substrate allows a great degree of customization, which is necessary in order to achieve our Ethereum compatibility goals. And, by using Rust, we benefit from both safety guarantees and performance gains.

Polkadot Network and Ecosystem¶

The Polkadot network is also a good fit for Moonbeam. As a parachain on Polkadot, Moonbeam will be able to directly integrate with — and move tokens between — any other parachains and parathreads on the network.

We can also leverage any of the bridges that are independently built to connect non-Polkadot chains to Polkadot, including bridges to Ethereum. Polkadot’s interoperability model uniquely supports Moonbeam’s cross-chain integration goals and is a key enabling technology to support the Moonbeam vision.

But perhaps just as important as the technical criteria above, we are impressed with the people in the Polkadot ecosystem. This includes individuals at Parity, the Web3 Foundation, and other projects in the ecosystem. We have built many valuable relationships and find the people to be both extremely talented and the kind of people we want to be around.