1. What is a Polygon supernet?
Designed to be a scalable solution, Supernet is the Polygon Network’s blockchain development platform that aims to help developers build their own blockchain protocols cost-effectively.
Developers using the Polygon network can access a wide range of validators and tools for easy integration and third-party services to assist with implementation, design and management.
Technically, supernets work on troubleshooting for Polygon’s development framework, Polygon Edge. Polygon Edge helps build Ethereum-compatible blockchains while keeping them secure, decentralized, and efficient.
The general concept of supernets is that they are collections of interconnected networks that promote collaborative work while serving as a secure data sharing hub. They can store and organize large amounts of data and facilitate communication between users.
The benefits of using Polygon supernets include interoperability, specificity, better scalability, security, and better decentralization. Supernets also handle the technical challenges of the Polygon Edge very well, especially around chain configurations and initializing decentralized validator sets.
Related: What is a supernet and how does it work?
2. How do Polygon supernets work?
Supernets are essentially a tool that helps developers understand complex data structures with relationships that would otherwise be difficult to identify.
Leveraging its own blockchain network and a global pool of validators, the Polygon supernet allows developers to build their own blockchain networks within the same framework as Ethereum, but at a much lower development cost.
Supernet allows developers to take their projects online with three ways to deploy quickly.
Supernet Sovereign Chain: This chain is managed by a single validator, resulting in significant savings on maintenance costs.
Supernet Shared Security Chain: This chain is validated by specialized validators holding at least 20,000 Polygon (MATIC) tokens.
Layer 2 chain: This chain uses zero-knowledge rollups to scale supernets and is still under development.
As mentioned, supernets are built on the Polygon Edge stack. They can be called an ecosystem or a blockchain system, as supernets are a set of modules that function and integrate seamlessly as new functions are added.
With the help of supernets, developers can create a distributed blockchain network designed for a specific use case. Supernets also offer greater scalability, speed, constant throughput, and extensive customization. In particular, they also allow the integration of Web3 applications on dedicated networks, allowing for maximum optimization.
3. What are the main features of Supernet Polygons?
Supernets have advanced technical architecture based on Polygon Edge, trustless operation via Merkle trees, Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility, and custom token support.
The Supernet architecture is closely related to that of Polygon Edge. The six modules in the Polygon Edge architecture relevant to supernets include the following:
TX Pool: Acting as a repository for pending transactions, this module is the key to Polygon Edge’s event-driven architecture. Transactions can be added easily from multiple sources and seamlessly connect to other platform modules.
Blockchain: Refers to the state database and contains account information, smart contract code, world state, and more.
JSON-RPC: Supernet API layer complies with Ethereum client standards, allowing tools like MetaMask, Web3.js, Ethers.js, Remix, and Hardhat to work seamlessly on your network.
Consensus: The Supernet uses proof-of-authority and proof-of-stake consensus algorithms.
Libp2p: This is the updated supernet peer-to-peer networking stack that facilitates block sync, consent messages, transaction pool gossip, and SAM pool gossip.
gRPC: With its powerful communication protocol, privileged operator commands in a supernet can only be executed locally on validator nodes. Validated operators can perform online backups, obtain information from validation systems, and query and purge data stored in the transaction pool.
Supernets also operate without trust, meaning each node independently validates each transaction by executing the smart contract. For the blockchain ledger to function properly, all nodes must contain an identical copy of it.
