There are thousands of cryptocurrencies across the ecosystem, a vast majority of which can’t communicate with each other. For example, users can’t send their Dogecoin over Chainlink for instance, or vice versa. Polkadot aims to fix that by building a framework that interconnects blockchains, even if each chain performs different functions to one another.
At the center of Polkadot sits the “relay chain,” a central blockchain that connects all other participating blockchains together. The relay chain processes all transactions taking place in the ecosystem at the same time, with the goal of improving scalability.