Will Polkadot surpass Ethereum?
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Will Polkadot surpass Ethereum?
For a time, Polkadot replaced DeFi as the market's new hotspot.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsMissed LINK, DeFi, and Ethereum—will you miss Polkadot too?
In the past week, Polkadot’s token DOT has more than doubled. The total market cap of Polkadot reached $5.4 billion, surpassing major cryptocurrencies like EOS, BCH, and LINK to rank sixth.
Meanwhile, KLP, KSM, and PCX—projects within the Polkadot ecosystem—rose by 330%, 166%, and 56% respectively over the past seven days.
Suddenly, Polkadot has replaced DeFi as the market's new hotspot.
According to Polkadot supporters, Polkadot combines every current trend—cross-chain interoperability, DeFi, DAOs—all in one. Beyond being dubbed the "king of chains," Polkadot still has untapped catalysts such as a potential Coinbase listing. More importantly, “all sidelined capital will flood into Polkadot.” Breaking $10 is just a short-term goal.
But critics argue that Polkadot might just be the next EOS—an ambitious project claiming to surpass ETH and build Internet 3.0, using similar tactics: EOS once required buying tokens for node elections, now DOT requires buying tokens for parachain auctions. It feels like history repeating itself.
Whether this is hype or real demand remains debatable, but it hasn't stopped DOT and its ecosystem tokens from skyrocketing.
Is Polkadot pure speculation or genuine innovation? After overtaking EOS, can Polkadot surpass Ethereum?
Polkadot Wealth Creation
Polkadot’s rise has created a new batch of crypto millionaires.
Since its redenomination, DOT surged for four consecutive days, reaching a new high of $6.30.
If some investors regretted missing the DeFi and LINK rallies earlier, Polkadot seems to have given them a second chance.
“Missing Ethereum in 2014 was a stain on our investment careers. Fortunately, after two years building on Polkadot’s ecosystem, we finally got our revenge,” said the founder of a blockchain fund.
What is Polkadot? It’s a scalable heterogeneous multi-chain system developed by Gavin Wood’s Parity Technologies and the Web3 Foundation.
In Gavin Wood’s own words, it’s actually a “network of networks”—and ultimately aims to become the “network of networks of networks.” In other words, it’s composable—a platform for blockchain innovators where you can build new business logic and integrate it into a broader system without being trapped by network effects.
“Polkadot combines all current trends—cross-chain, DeFi, DAO—in one,” said one Polkadot investor. All public chains can bridge to Polkadot, DOT enables DAO governance, and all ecosystem assets can participate in DeFi. To him, Polkadot can do it all. ChainX CMO Kristen stated: DOT = ADA + XTZ + ETH2.0 + EOS + ATOM.
“Public chains are the center of ecosystems; Polkadot is the center of public chains.” To many investors, Polkadot represents the next Ethereum-level investment opportunity.
In the past week alone, DOT more than doubled in price. Polkadot’s market cap hit $5.5 billion, overtaking mainstream coins like EOS and BCH to reach sixth place. “The greatest distance in the world is that you’re already trading Polkadot—the so-called Blockchain 3.0—while I’m still stuck with Litecoin, Blockchain 1.0.”
It’s not just DOT—tokens across the Polkadot ecosystem have seen strong gains.
“Crypto is now in the Polkadot era—ecosystem tokens are shining brightly,” said one investor.
The wealth effect is drawing more attention to Polkadot and its ecosystem. Meanwhile, veteran crypto holders are reminded of 2018—the summer of the EOS super node elections.
The Next EOS?
Polkadot’s architecture consists of three main components: the Relay Chain, Parachains, and Bridges (Brightchains). It enables data transfer across blockchains, allowing assets and data to flow between different chains.
“What makes Polkadot most remarkable isn’t the project itself, but the cross-chain ecosystem it could potentially create,” said an investor.
Cross-chain technology has long been debated, with approaches including Lightning Network, sidechains, and relays—but none matured until now. Cross-chain solutions fall into two categories: asset transfers and contract interoperability. Cosmos supports only asset transfers, while Polkadot supports both—provided the connected chains share the same consensus mechanism.
Simply put, for Polkadot to build a cross-chain ecosystem, it must achieve consensus among other public chains and applications. This is why Polkadot emphasizes ecosystem development.
The Polkadot ecosystem comprises three key areas:
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Validators (POS Bakerz, Polkadot.pro)
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Kusama Network (a faster, experimental version of Polkadot; Polkadot itself is slower, used for low-risk, high-value applications)
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Substrate infrastructure projects (ChainX, Darwinia Network, MXC, Edgeware, Ocean Protocol, CELR)
As early as late 2018, the Web3 Foundation—founded by Polkadot creator Gavin Wood—launched a grant program to fund open-source projects related to Polkadot and Substrate (Polkadot’s modular toolkit), offering up to $100,000 per project.
Today, the Polkadot ecosystem includes over 100 applications/entities, spanning cryptocurrency wallets, validators, forums, browsers, and various Substrate-based projects in privacy, bridging, DeFi, smart contracts, and more.
Many compare Polkadot to EOS—they both claim to surpass ETH, aim to build Internet 3.0, rely on nodes/parachains, and have sparked market frenzies.
In June 2018, before EOS mainnet launch, its price peaked at $22 with a market cap briefly hitting $17.6 billion—three times Polkadot’s current value and six times EOS’s current market cap.
However, when it comes to ecosystem development and support, Polkadot and EOS are incomparable. Two years after EOS mainnet launch, Block.one—the company behind EOS—allocated only $1.7 million to fund 34 projects. In contrast, the Web3 Foundation had already funded 129 projects totaling $6.45 million before Polkadot’s mainnet went live.
Despite raising massive funds, Block.one largely converted its billions into Bitcoin and U.S. Treasuries during the bear market.
EOS neglected internal ecosystem growth—and even suffered infighting. A public letter from members of the Meet.one project accused Block.one of poor boundary management within the EOS ecosystem, leading to dissatisfaction among DApp developers. For example, EOS New York’s API was taken and claimed as Block.one’s own work—a move mocked as “shearing wool” from community projects.
Two years later, EOS has aged into obscurity, surpassed by newcomers like LINK, watching helplessly as they pull ahead.
With EOS continuing to underperform, many investors have shifted to Polkadot. In one EOS community, Block.one, EOS, and its founder BM are now pariahs. “EOS is just another public chain with average speed—nothing special or innovative. It’s just a direct copy of ETH,” said former EOS evangelists.
Currently, Polkadot’s DeFi ecosystem already includes projects like Stafi, Acala, and Sora Network.
“Old hands think it’s the next EOS; new hands believe it’s the next Ethereum,” goes a popular saying. The former symbolizes “hype,” the latter “value investing.”
Can Polkadot surpass Ethereum?
According to the above investor, Polkadot leads in technology but lags far behind Ethereum in ecosystem maturity—it must complete its ecosystem buildout before ETH 2.0 launches.
Ethereum Killer?
“If Polkadot’s parachain system operates smoothly, surpassing Ethereum is inevitable,” said an investor.
“One-click token creation” has long been Ethereum supporters’ slogan. Now, Polkadot backers have an even bolder one: “One-click chain creation.”
Polkadot’s development framework Substrate enables one-click chain deployment—users can launch their own blockchain in 15 minutes and issue tokens on it. Moreover, users can design not only their own chains but also custom economic models.
To expert users, the key difference between Polkadot and Ethereum lies in on-chain governance. Polkadot allows rapid response and upgrades. Any new technology or cryptography can be added via community voting.
Lane Rettig, a core Ethereum team member, once wrote that Ethereum’s governance has failed—“it’s effectively rule by technical experts.”
On Ethereum, anyone can create and submit an EIP (Ethereum Improvement Proposal), which is then reviewed and voted on by core developers.
Despite appearing decentralized, Ethereum lacks an efficient decision-making mechanism, resulting in slow progress. For instance, the Constantinople hard fork was originally scheduled for November 2018 but delayed to March 2019 due to lack of consensus.
“Polkadot’s evolution is decided by DOT holders.” A governing council composed of active token holders proposes upgrades, and final approval requires a public referendum. The process: proposal → voting → tallying.
Voting power is calculated based on token holdings and lock-up duration, ensuring minimum economic commitment while discouraging vote-selling. The council meets monthly, representing DOT stakeholders—where alignment of interest drives motivation.
The technical committee’s sole role is to review code issues—not make governance decisions—and its members can be added or removed by the council.
Orange Paper once compared Ethereum and Polkadot’s visions: Ethereum aims to use its ledger to help villages and economies worldwide keep accounts and settle transactions, while Polkadot uses its relay chain to record ledgers *for* those villages. Fundamentally, both are ledgers.
However, unlike Ethereum’s near-zero barrier to entry, launching a chain on Polkadot requires staking a certain amount of DOT. Projects needing high stability must join as parachains; lower-volume validation projects can use “parathreads,” akin to “shared bikes.”
Polkadot’s resources are limited—so are parachain slots. In the first year of mainnet operation, the number of slots will grow from around 5 to between 50 and 200 as technology evolves.
Most slots—excluding reserved ones—will be leased through “candle auctions” requiring DOT collateral. Each slot lasts 6 months to 2 years.
Both validator staking and parachain slots require locking DOT, meaning Polkadot will eventually face challenges with stake unlocking.
Currently, DOT’s staking rate is 70.2%, nearly 70% of total supply. According to Subscan, Polkadot’s blockchain explorer, about 66.89 million DOT will be unlocked in the coming month, creating potential sell pressure.
Comparing on-chain metrics, Polkadot still has a long way to go versus Ethereum. Ethereum averages around 600,000 daily active addresses; Polkadot has about 12,000—just 2%. Yet Polkadot’s market cap ($5.6B) is 13% of Ethereum’s ($432.26B).
Still, Ethereum’s community is wary of Polkadot’s rise.
In 2019, former Ethereum core developer Afri Schoedon publicly praised Polkadot on Twitter, stating it had achieved what Ethereum’s Phase 4 (Serenity) aimed for—earning him the label “Ethereum traitor” and prompting his exit from the Ethereum community.
Many projects within Ethereum’s ecosystem are also eyeing Polkadot. Aragon, a decentralized governance project built on Ethereum, maintains a subtle relationship with Polkadot. Earlier this year, Aragon announced support for both Ethereum and Polkadot.
“Is the Ethereum killer finally here?” someone asked in a Polkadot community group.
In 2016, Ethereum faced a fork crisis. The Parity team considered creating a sharded version independently. Gavin Wood realized Ethereum 2.0 would take at least five years—possibly 5 to 10—so he chose to leave Ethereum and start fresh. In business history, founding members leaving to launch competing projects is common—but few succeed in overtaking their origins.
Four years later, Polkadot launched and now stands on the same stage as Ethereum. The battle between Polkadot and Ethereum has only just begun.
Where will Polkadot go from here? As one DOT investor put it, in the blockchain world, Polkadot is a fresh face—no dark history, no trapped capital—moving steadily toward uncharted territory.
*TechFlow reminds all investors to beware of FOMO and high-price risks. The views expressed herein do not constitute investment advice.
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