Trends in blockchain development changes rapidly. Looking back at 2024, it was a year dedicated to custom Layer2s. This year, an unexpected amount of applications chose to build their own standalone chain rather than deploying on a single chain. Polkadot Parachain is one such appchain application-specific framework for creation of custom Layer1s.
Polkadot Parachain’s growth and adoption in 2024 can’t be overseen. Be it adding exceptional features like agile coretime, elastic scaling or increasing the number of Parachains from 90 (2023) to 215 (2024) or forging world-class partnerships– Parachains have been victorious in all the important aspects.
Now that it’s mid-January, let’s dive deeper into Polkadot Parachains in 2025. We’ll discuss all the things happening on Parachain’s horizon and how it will offer even better feasibility for use case-specific chains.
Single-chain model and its long-standing supremacy
Single-chain models in refers to blockchain architecture where applications are deployed on a primary chain, all their data goes into the network, and common validators work for them. This approach offers a cohesive ecosystem for applications, enabling both the applications and transactions to follow common rules to simply network’s interactions and complex integrations. But, single-chain models comes with certain limitations such as fragmented interoperability, limited throughput, high network congestion, single-point of failure, lack of modularity, increased gas fee, and upgradability issues.
Despite this, single-chain model has quite dominance over applications. If we looka t Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Solana has 406+, Ethereum currently has more than 4897 dApps, Solana has, and Bitcoin has 73+ dApps. Now, in 2025, Polkadot Parachain is pumping up to challenge single-chain model and offer next-gen capabiliteis while also solving the existing issues. Let’s learn more.
Polkadot Parachain: Ending single-chain domination in 2025
Polkadot Parachains is set to end the domination of single-chain model, and thereby create a solid foundation for customon chains that are powered with multi-chain features. To achieve this, Parachains are benefitting from Polkadot 2.0, which is one of the best update Parachain have experienced yet and a key aspect of Polkadot 2025 roadmap. Here’s a tweet:
The 2025 Roadmap for Polkadot was released by the dev team at @paritytech
— Polkadot (@Polkadot) January 15, 2025
Polkadot 1.0 laid the foundation
→ Scalable L1s, native interoperability, and shared security.
2025 is about Polkadot 2.0
→ Scaling the network for every use case and opening up new tools for devs +… pic.twitter.com/c3foM928H2
Comprehensively, Polkadot 2.0 is all about use case-specific network scaling and offering right set of tools for both developers and users. Earlier, Polkadot 1.0 offered scalable L1s, shared security, and native interoperability for Polkadot Parachains. Now, Let’s go into details of what exactly Polkadot 2.0 has to offer:
1. Solidity smart contract support- Polkadot 2.0 is making notable upgrades in asset hub to enable EVM-compatibility and allowing Parachains building in 2025 will to run Solidity-based smart contracts. This will allows Parachains to move beyond WASM-based contract and achieve higher adoption.
2. Polkadot virtual machine- PolkaVM is designed as a RISC-V- powered lightweight virtual machine that enable creation and deployment fast, fully secure, and easily scalable smart contract for Polkadot Parachains. Right now, PolkadotVM uses an interpreter that is built into the runtime. Through future upgrades, Parachains will have a full PolkaVM JIT compiler that runs on top of client. This virtual machine will have some next-level features compared to EVM, such as very fast execution, low memory footprint, it will be fully deterministic, optimized for high-performance, simple to design & implement, cross-platform capabilities, built-in tools for debugging and performance, etc.
3. Elastic scaling- With Elastic scaling allow for adding extra cores to handle increased on-chain demand on the entire ecosystem. This allows Parachains to get core times on short notice so that their block can be validated quickly and more transactions can be executed without any trouble. Elastic scaling is highly beneficial for applications those are usually uncertain about their coretime requirements. Now, such applications can get coretime at their specific time with no need for selection between low-performance or high-cost.
Polkadot Parachain included Elastic Scaling in its 2024 roadmap, though its full-fledged version is rolling out in 2025. Therefore, in our previous article, we talked about Elastic scaling and its working mechanism. It will allow Parachains to achieve dynamic throughput & scaling capabilities with zero scalability bottlenecks. Elastic scaling compliments Parachain’s existing asynchronous backing upgrade that expects to offer 10,00,000 TPS in 2025.
4. XCM v5- Polkadot Parachains are already recognized widely for XCM or cross-consenus messaging format. Now, Polkadot is bringing XVM version5 in 2025 ensuring better cross-chain connectivity, cost predictability and improved UX to support seamless asset transfer across sovereign L1 Parachains. On a technical side, As of ink! v5.1.0, two new functions, xcm_execute and xcm_send, have been introduced. These functions enable sending and executing XCM from within ink! contracts.
5. Unified address format- This is again a critical Polkadot Parachain upgrade that offer one address prefix for the whole Parachain ecosystem.. As of September 24, Polkadot had 150+ registered users, each with different SS58 prefixes. Having unique address prefix for each entity means the need for unique address format and significant fragmentation in the ecosystem. Also, it confuses developers about why different address are required for each wallet or dApps they build. Unified address format puts an end to all these problems. UAF is proposing a solution to offer Prefix:0 (starting with ‘1’)for Polkadot Parachain and Prefix: 42 (starting with ‘5’) for Substrate chains, further avoiding mistakes and ensuring better UX for everyone.
6. Fast Unstaking- Users on Polkadot Parachains now have the privilege to unstake DOT tokens faster, within 2 days. Previously fast staking was only enabled on Kusama and it has arrived successfully on Polkadot. However, there are some eligibilities for accounts to leverage this fast staking features, such as:
> The respective stash account shouldn’t be backed by any validator in the past 28 days.
> The account must not be having a redeemable or unbounding funds.
7. Omni node- With Omni node, Polkadot Parachains is offering simplified tooling for custom blockchain development. As you may know, Polkadot ecosystem is classified into the node and the runtime. As of now, developers had the hassle of maintaining both these components, which slows down innovation on its end.
With Omni node, developers have the ease to use a single node for running a Parachain built with Substrate. This means, they no longer need to manage node infrastructure for their custom Parachains or experiencing breaking changes, or node maintenance overhead. Instead, they have entire time to focus on runtime logic. For example, a giant DeFi integrator (example- crypto exchange) can now use just a single node to manage 20 independent Parachains– no need for 20 separate nodes.
8. SAFROLE- Previously known as SASSAFRAS, SAFROLE is a SNARK-powered algorithm (consensus mechanism) for block production that support anonymous validators selection for greater chain security and performance. Safrole uses a multi-stage process on validator selection which involve strategic judgements and and guarantees to maintain computational correctness.
9. JAM SDK- JAM SDK is designed to offer efficiency and untapped flexibility for developers. They can now build, code, and program their use case-specific Parachains with practically zero barriers. However, the JAM SDK is at quite a early development stage, and is functional for development of JAM-related services and authorizers. JAM SDK has three main components– JAM Types & PVM Common, JAM Bootstrap Service & Null Authorizer, and JAM PVM Builder. More changes and technological innovations are yet to happens on JAM SDK.
10. DOT as universal token- DOT- Polkadot’s native token, which has been used for governance, staking, and bonding, is now proposed to be utilized as gas tokens across diverse Parachains. More information on this proposal is yet to come.
Polkadot (Parachain) in 2025:
Source: Parity
Single-chain vs Polkadot Parachain: A Comparison
| Parameters | Single-chain model | Polkadot Parachain |
| Modularity | Missing: a single layer for consensus, computation, and storage. | Polkadot Parachains are modular by design, can be customized for use-case specific needs. |
| Scalability (TPS) | Limited based single chain’s capacity. | TPS can be adjusted as per congestion and scalability needs. |
| Cross-chain connectivity | Struggle to achieve native cross-chain connectivity. | Seamless cross-chain interaction is enabled thorough XCM; cross-consensus message format. |
| Network fee (gas cost) | Typically higher as many applications use a single ecosystem. | Generally low, and predictable due to independent chain concept. |
| Security | Depends on the ecosystem, example- Ethereum offers robust security. | Shared security with Polkadot’s Relay chain. |
| Upgradability | Require hardforks often. | Seamless upgrades through Polkadot’s sophisticated on-chain governance. |
| Ecosystem | Fragmeted due to chain functioning in silos. | Collaborative ecosystem, allowing parachains to benefit from shared tools and unified liquidity. |
| Validator/ecomonic model | Validator’s cost and rewards are chain-specific. Less-mature chains may may face sustainability issues. | Sustainability is offered with shared validator sets, parachain slot leasing, and coretime allocation. |
| Network congestion | High oftentimes. | Less due to the multi-chain approach. |
| Best use cases | General-purpose dApps, payments, and specific high-performance applications. | Custom, use case-specific dApps for all the top industries, including gaming, RWA, AI Agents, DePIN, etc. |
Ready to build your Layer1 Parachain in 2025?
Polkadot Parachains are truly game-changer and is offering a next-gen modular blockchain ecosystem to meet use case-specific requirements of distinct applications. With cutting-edge scalability, seamless interoperability, and top-grade tools, it is definitely setting a new standard for custom chain innovation. If you’re planing to build or already build a L1 Parachain, Perfuse (by Zeeve) is here to simplify things for you. Using Perfuse, you can build and go live wiitin few clicks. Further, you will benefit from fully managed nodes, infra components, 24/7 monitoring setup, and critical 3rd party integrations for modularity. For more information about Perfuse and its comprehensive offerings, connect with our experts. Or, book a demo for a detailed overview.
