Polkadot co-founder proposes new Plaza system to unify parachains and enhance scalability

Polkadot co-founder Rob Habermeier has proposed Plaza, a new system chain designed to unify parachain functionalities and enhance network scalability.

According to Habermeier, the current distribution of functionalities across multiple chains creates challenges for users and developers, leading to fragmentation and scalability limitations. He is advocating for a strategic focus on usability by building a synchronous system with scaling features.

Plaza

Plaza will integrate various parachain features into a single chain, benefiting users, developers, liquidity providers, and decentralized applications (dApps). The proposed solution would include several features, including asset issuance, smart contracts, staking, bridging pallets, and near-zero fees.

The chain will evolve from the existing AssetHub, which already supports asset wallets, bridging, and tooling integrations.

With Polkadot’s upcoming Elastic Scaling, Habermeier believes consolidating functionalities into a single chain will be advantageous. He stated that if approved, Plaza would streamline interactions across the Polkadot network, allowing developers to concentrate on scalability.

Habermeier wrote:

“We should work together as an ecosystem to bring a batteries-included single chain up to its point of bursting and only then relieve the pressure by spinning out apps, users, and system functionality. Polkadot has the cores to support all of this to the level of scale the world needs. The city needs to grow outwards from the center, and that center should be the Plaza.”

He also mentioned that Plaza might incorporate Polkadot’s identity and governance functionality in the future.

Habermeier acknowledged that while the new chain might temporarily impact other chains, it would ultimately drive further expansion of the Polkadot network. He said:

“My vision here is that this will be the New York City, Dubai, London, or Shenzhen of the Polkadot continent, the first megacity of many and a precursor to greater expansion. We can implement this plan eagerly, knowing that when the Plaza is saturated Polkadot (or JAM) has the raw validated compute power needed to handle that expansion.”