Polkadot-Ethereum Compatibility with Moonbeam

About this Episode

This week we dive into cross-network compatibility and interoperability between Polkadot and Ethereum. Joe Petrowski (Research Analyst, Parity Technologies) speaks with Derek Yoo of Moonbeam, an Ethereum-compatible smart contract parachain built on Substrate for Polkadot. They discuss Moonbeam and how it works, the role of smart contracts on Polkadot, the difference between Moonbeam and Ethereum layer-2 solutions, and the future of cross-network interoperability.

Links:
Derek Yoo: https://twitter.com/derekyoo
Moonbeam: https://twitter.com/MoonbeamNetwork
Purestake: https://twitter.com/purestakeco

Highlights:
06:27 - What is Moonbeam?
08:15 - Why Moonbeam is more than just an EVM implementation
12:16 - The difference between Moonbeam and an Ethereum-Polkadot bridge
15:40 - How parachain solutions compare to Ethereum layer-2 solutions
18:17 - The role of smart contracts on Polkadot
20:36 - Where the EVM fits in to Polkadot
24:44 - Motivation for also deploying Moonbeam to Kusama
30:05 - How different networks will work together
33:22 - Current state of applications on Moonbeam

Key Quotes:
“The power of Substrate is definitely the magic here. I think people don’t appreciate how powerful a framework on Substrate is. We’ve worked with some teams that are building a blockchain from scratch, and that’s a 20-30 person engineering effort….It’s a dramatic difference when you use a framework like Substrate.”

“Part of our attraction to Polkadot is this ability for different chains to leverage each other’s specialized services.”

“[Kusama] is a pretty key competitive advantage to Substrate-based projects. This ability to move, maintain momentum and respond to what’s happening….You can have larger competitors but if you’re able to move faster and respond faster you can get a big competitive advantage.”

“[Interoperability] is more in changing people's minds than it being a technical problem. You’re always going to get a bit of tribalism at play in this space…but we’re drawn to the interoperability idea because it opens choices for developers to take advantage of the best that any given chain has to offer.”