#polkadot
The Polkadot token (DOT) serves two main functions within the Polkadot network: it's a governance token, which allows holders to have a say in the future of the protocol, and it's used for staking, which is the way the Polkadot network verifies transactions and issues new DOT.
How does Polkadot work?
The reason Polkadot can process all of this information is because the many parachains do a lot of the heavy lifting for the main relay chain. As a result, the Polkadot network can process more than 1,000 transactions per second, compared to about 7 for Bitcoin and 30 for Ethereum. As the network grows and more parachains are added, Polkadot should get even faster, with speeds that could hit a million transactions per second.
Who created Polkadot?
Polkadot’s developers include Ethereum co creator Gavin Wood. It launched on May 26, 2020. The nonprofit Web3 Foundation is the primary research organization that maintains Polkadot’s open-source code.
