Should Polkadot's market positioning and narrative be adjusted?
Despite its technology being widely recognized, Polkadot still needs to make changes in market positioning and narrative.Author: PolkaWorld
Dan Reecer shared his insights on the Polkadot forum a few months after leaving Polkadot, offering some thoughts on Polkadot's positioning and narrative in the market. His observations and analysis provide us with a new perspective, giving us the opportunity to re-examine the value and potential of Polkadot.
Dan believes that Polkadot's positioning as an "interoperability solution" does not accurately capture the main advantages it offers to top blockchain development teams. This is because Polkadot only provides interoperability within its own ecosystem, while protocols like Axelar, LayerZero, and Wormhole have already captured most of the transaction volume in achieving comprehensive crypto interoperability. The advantages of interoperability within the Polkadot ecosystem can only be realized when there is significant user activity and transaction volume across multiple parachains.
He cited some recent examples of teams choosing chain development platforms:
BNB Chain just announced opBNB as an L2 chain of the OP Stack. Why did they do this? Because Optimism has momentum, users, liquidity, and is easy to build on.
Frax just announced Frax Chain as an ETH L2. Why? They want to tap into the liquidity of the ETH mainnet. They did not launch on Polkadot because Polkadot lacks liquidity and users, and they do not need interoperability from Polkadot since such interoperability is only valuable when other chains on Polkadot are worth interacting with.
dYdX will launch a chain in the Cosmos ecosystem. They chose to do this because the Cosmos SDK provides them with flexibility, there are a number of strong chains in the Cosmos ecosystem, Cosmos has momentum, and there is a certain amount of liquidity in Cosmos.
These chains are choosing their development stacks not for the benefits of interoperability, but for development convenience/speed of launch and liquidity/user base. Polkadot can provide all these technical advantages, even surpassing these competitors, but it truly needs to address the liquidity/user issue. Therefore, he believes that Polkadot's narrative and market positioning need some adjustments to better attract and meet the needs of chain development teams.
First, he believes that one of the main values Polkadot can offer is its modularity and customizability. This is an advantage brought by Substrate technology, which allows development teams to flexibly adjust and modify according to their specific use cases. This flexibility not only simplifies the development process but also enables teams to better adapt to market demands and changes, thereby enhancing their competitiveness.
Second, Polkadot's EVM compatibility is also an important advantage. Through this compatibility, any chain can be compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), thus leveraging Ethereum's rich application ecosystem and extensive user base. This compatibility can not only provide more possibilities for development teams but also help them gain market recognition more quickly.
In addition, the high security provided to its parachains by Polkadot is also one of its significant values. Development teams using Polkadot do not need to set up their own validator sets, which alleviates their burden while also enhancing the security and stability of their chains.
Furthermore, from the perspective of regulatory compliance, Polkadot's DOT token can also bring some advantages. Using the DOT token as the operational token for chains can help development teams better comply with relevant regulations and reduce the legal risks they face.
Finally, as a pioneer in blockchain governance, Polkadot's advantages in on-chain governance should not be overlooked. This advantage can not only enhance the platform's transparency and fairness but also help development teams better manage and coordinate their projects.
To better illustrate these points, Dan shared the example of Polygon Supernets. The website of Polygon Supernets clearly lists their advantages: "Polygon Supernets allows you to create high-performance, customizable application chains quickly and seamlessly, with compliance implementation options." This statement accurately captures the needs of developers and effectively communicates their advantages.
Returning to Polkadot, we can see that despite its technology being widely recognized, Polkadot still needs to make changes in market positioning and narrative. First, Polkadot needs to clearly define and emphasize the main values it can provide, including modularity, security, regulatory compliance, and on-chain governance. At the same time, Polkadot also needs to identify its unique aspects to differentiate itself from other chain development platforms. This uniqueness may stem from its technological advantages or from a deep understanding of developer needs.
Overall, Dan's analysis and suggestions provide us with a new perspective, helping us to understand Polkadot's value and potential more deeply. By re-examining and adjusting its market positioning and narrative, the community hopes that Polkadot can stand out in the competitive blockchain market and gain more support from developers and users.
In fact, any technological product needs a clear and accurate market positioning to guide its development direction and meet user needs. For Polkadot, its positioning must not only accurately reflect its technological advantages but also fully consider the needs of developers and users. This is a complex and ongoing process, and it is an important direction for Polkadot's future development.
In this process, Polkadot must not only accurately identify and address the needs of developers and users but also remain sensitive to market dynamics to timely adjust its market positioning and narrative. At the same time, Polkadot also needs to continue optimizing and enhancing its technology to ensure that its technological advantages can align with market demands, thereby creating greater value. We look forward to Polkadot presenting itself in a new light, gaining more support, and achieving greater success!
