rich
Sun, 16 Oct 2022 14:50:32 +0000
Ecosystem

Darwin’s survey ship the HMS Beagle

Substrate ecology v0.2

*Post updated 21.11.22 to v0.2 after feedback. *
Please continue to add comments to document.

What is Substrate?

Substrate strives to be the best blockchain framework in which to build your custom blockchain. Substrate is not a blockchain in itself, but akin to a blockchain SDK framework. Substrate empowers you to build beyond the capabilities of others, giving you the freedom to define your chain however you want. Substrate

In practice is Substrate more than an SDK?

Currently Substrate’s use-cases, value accrual and collaborative potential are still a matter of heated debate - which is perfectly normal in the early stages of a novel technology.

Its emerging open source ecology is rooted in shared trust assumptions, shaped by both off-chain and on-chain entities of varying scale, sustained through new monetary systems and governed through developing structures of digital governance that aim to attract, empower and sustain supra-national and hyper-local contributions.

Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, governance and decision making over the network base layer are explicit in its design, the thesis is concretely that of intentionally directed development.

It is therefore perhaps better understood in practice as a social technology for developing sovereign digital organisations.

Given the fluid nature of this multi-chain ecology, It is intuitive that the current form is far from its final form - if indeed its form does finalise in any meaningful sense.

Further, for the Substrate ecology to survive and indeed thrive long term, it is intuitive and entirely natural that it will need to reinvent itself, its assumptions, framings and perspectives.

In this way, it is impossible to define - which is the point, it can become anything, and by recursive logic, if it is to become something truly important, we would not recognise that today.

As someone wise once said, you can only join the dots looking backwards.

Joining the dots

Currently disagreements usually emerge as a result of incomplete context, definitions and assumptions about certain emerging social conventions e.g. should a Free Market Parachain be able to receive Relay funding - and if so, under what conditions.

In almost every debate, the answer can be both very simple and very complex, but the low bandwidth of communication systems - text, chat and very little IRL, tends towards a narrowing of thinking, miscommunication and the retreat into binary positions.

If Substrate is to truly develop productive new organisations using novel governance systems, then there is a requirement for documenting these evolving cultures.

Substrate Ecology v0.1

The below is an evolving attempt at surveying, deconstructing and defining the established and emerging characteristics of each particular species of Substrate chain.

Their philosophies, design frameworks, definitions, traits, social conventions and narratives.

It is not, nor could it be exhaustive - it is designed to be a living, breathing, emerging document chronicling the current state as experienced by those inhabiting its territories.

The aim is to evolve shared context and outline current consensus positions to provide consistent definitions from which more orderly discussion, debate and innovation can emerge.

This approach will also naturally lead to the discovery of new species and also the predictive capacity to develop new ones as the philosophical landscape emerges.

This is a start

Corrections, clarifications and additions will be needed - this is just my own particular scavenging for meaning and definitions as a way of understanding the challenges and opportunities - others will be able to contribute their own perspectives and interpretations.

Please comment on the Google doc which can transition into a Github repo.

v0.2

v0.1

6 posts - 4 participants