10 burning questions about Apillon

1. What is Apillon?
2. What important challenges does Apillon solve?
3. Who can use Apillon?
4. What kind of projects can you build with Apillon and why?
5. What are parachains, and why isn’t Apillon one?
6. Why did Apillon choose Polkadot Network rather than other blockchains?
7. What stage is the Apillon platform currently in?
8. Does Apillon have its own token?
9. What is the pathway for building projects with Apillon?
10. What Apillon partnerships have already been announced, and what Web3 features are expected to be incorporated into the platform in the future?

With new decentralized technologies developing at an impressive speed, navigating the vast Web3 ecosystem can easily become overwhelming for anybody, especially newcomers.

Apillon’s mission is to help developers and businesses adopt Web3 technologies. However, even if you’ve got the best tool in the world, it doesn’t help you much if you’re unsure why and how to use it. Therefore, returning to basics occasionally can help keep the bigger picture in mind.

Here’s a list of the 10 most common questions that keep popping up when people enter the Web3 world and hear about Apillon for the first time.

1. What is Apillon?

The short answer and the first thing you can read in the Apillon Wiki is that Apillon is a Web3 development platform for developers and businesses building on Web3.

Apillon’s vision is to become the go-to platform for future Web3 developers and thus accelerate the world’s transition to a completely decentralized future.

In case you’re not familiar with the concept of Web3 — it’s a new version of the internet that connects users via decentralized network(s) and can therefore introduce an ownership-based approach to handling all the data.

The idea sprouted as an alternative to the current version of the web, where few big tech corporations sit on top of all user data. In Web3, you, as the user, regain control from third-party providers by owning and managing your data and assets. Based on the concept of decentralization, this new read-write-own type of web redefines how digital assets and their metadata are owned, shared, and managed.

Web3-based products are all projects built in a decentralized way using blockchain and blockchain-adjacent technologies. And this is where Apillon comes in.

2. What significant challenges does Apillon solve?

Apillon helps developers build Web3 projects faster and more easily.

It would take developers who are used to developing products in the standard Web2 environment months or even years to master the technical knowledge needed to set a solid foundation and start building a Web3 product. Naturally, this would significantly prolong the product's go-to-market timeline.

Apillon lowers the entry barrier for developers and reduces building Web3 products to just a few lines of code. The Apillon platform gathers unified API endpoints that enable access to different Polkadot parachains with a simple API call (more on parachains below).

Equipped with ample SDKs and comprehensive documentation, developers can bypass the complexity of blockchain from the day they one of building.

Building a complex and fully functional Web3-based product usually also requires harnessing the services provided by more than one Polkadot parachain, and this is where the real fun starts. Implementing them individually would be a very lengthy, not to mention complex, endeavor for the developer. Since the Apillon platform delivers services from different parachains to a single spot, the developer’s task becomes significantly more manageable, allowing them to focus more on the functionalities of their Web3 product.

By helping the developer overcome the complexity of building a Web3 project from scratch, the Apillon platform also drastically shortens the go-to-market timeline of the Web3 product.

3. Who can use Apillon?

Any developer with standard programming knowledge or business interested in building a decentralized product.

No matter if you’ve been down the Web3 block many times or if you’re a Web2 developer fresh in the Web3 world, the Apillon platform provides easy-to-use and mix-and-match APIs and plug-ins to access Web3 services as well as ample documentation.

Remember, your product doesn’t need to be built with blockchain technology from A to Z to earn the honorable badge of Web3: even one blockchain-based tweak can significantly improve your website or app.

4. What kind of projects can you build with Apillon and why?

With Apillon, developers and businesses can build decentralized apps using blockchain technologies in the Polkadot network faster and more easily.

Developers building new digital solutions or just upgrading existing ones can access Web3 services through the Apillon platform with simple API calls. In the testing stage, the available services include Web3 hosting and Web3 storage, with Web3 computing and Web3 authentication to be added shortly.

Decentralized projects bring more transparent, traceable, secure, and private online experiences that put end users in charge of their data, assets, and privacy.

Besides, the benefits go beyond transparency, privacy, and security: decentralized apps, or dapps for short, can be more efficient and provide faster, real-time transactions and data exchange.

5. What are parachains, and why isn’t Apillon one?

As per An Introduction to Polkadot, Polkadot Lightpaper, “Polkadot is a sharded blockchain. This means it connects several chains together in a single network, allowing them to process transactions in parallel and exchange data between chains with security guarantees. Thanks to Polkadot’s unique heterogeneous sharding model, each chain in the network can be optimized for a specific use case rather than being forced to adapt to a one-size-fits-all model.”

In short, parachains are different blockchains that are connected to the Polkadot Network. Each parachain solves its specific use case, but they all belong to the main Relay Chain where they “can be validated by the validators. The name parachains comes from the concept of parallelized chains that run parallel to the Relay Chain” as per Polkadot Wiki.

While parachains can securely communicate with each other, each comes with unique setups and requirements. While this makes parachains great for providing different functionalities, it’s difficult to implement different parachains within a single app. In fact, few Web3 projects have demonstrated the ability to do so. Nonetheless, this is precisely where the full growth potential of the Polkadot blockchain lies: plugging into multiple parachains at once and delivering numerous Web3 features.

Apillon is one of the first solutions that connects several Polkadot parachains to a single endpoint. This allows developers to easily and quickly access the APIs to specific parachains and start developing right on top of the underlying protocols.

6. Why did Apillon choose Polkadot Network rather than other blockchains?

Bitcoin was the very first application of blockchain, delivering a decentralized currency. Then, the next-gen blockchain upgrade was born: the Ethereum network. A smart-contract-based technology, Ethereum enables the exchange of value besides just the currency. Under its auspices, developers were able to build and deploy decentralized apps.

However, Ethereum has its limitations, such as flexibility, scalability, and sovereignty. Since it doesn’t support cross-blockchain interoperability and the limited scalability of transactions, the mass-scale adoption cannot really succeed.

The unique architectural nature of the Polkadot blockchain that supports cross-blockchain interoperability, on the other hand, integrates diverse parachains into a scalable and flexible network, which is ideally suited for building in the Web3 ecosystem.

Unlike layer 1 blockchains such as Ethereum and Bitcoin; layer 0, or the so-called relay chain of Polkadot, executes only the most basic actions to maintain the network. Each of the parachains has the freedom and potential to design their own governance structures, calibrate their functionalities, and set up a specific use-case purpose to follow.

Since the individual parachains within the Polkadot network can communicate with each other and exchange data all while processing transactions, Polkadot lays the ideal groundwork for building products in the Web3 ecosystem. Its potential of scalability and flexibility, which did not emerge from earlier blockchains, is the key to build on.

7. What stage is the Apillon platform currently in?

At the time of writing, the Apillon platform is in the Closed Beta stage. On January 26, the Closed Beta version of the Apillon platform was released according to plan.

The main purpose of this invitation-only version of the platform is to test the integrated basic features and uncover any potential bugs. The beta testers can contribute to the platform’s further development by expressing feedback on any possible upgrades.

The platform is expected to move to the next stages in the following months.

8. Does Apillon have its own token?

NCTR, Apillon’s native utility token, is a multi-purpose asset that is designed to cover different utility cases for community members and platform users.

The Apillon Tokenomics Whitepaper sets out the roles that different applications of NCTR will play in boosting the adoption of Web3 technologies. Besides NCTR’s three main utilities, namely governance, staking and payment utilities, incentivization, value exchange, and proof of adoption (PoA) utilities will be added at later stages.

The governance utility of the NCTR token will enable all NCTR token holders and stakers to co-create the future of the Apillon platform in exchange for rewards. NCTR holders, stakers, and platform users will be able to submit and vote on proposals that would improve the platform. As Apillon’s goal is designing a platform built by developers for developers, the votes of NCTR holders that are also platform users will be given more weight.

Once the freemium model is applied on the platform (more on that below), the payment utility of the NCTR token will enable a unified means of payment for the Apillon platform users to unlock the platform’s connectivity to different Web3 services.

This means the platform users won’t need to acquire or exchange the native tokens of individual parachains or use several wallets. While Web3 services on the platform will be paid in NCTR tokens by the users, Apillon will be paying for the underlying services in their own tokens at the other end of the business funnel.

NCTR token is expected to be released soon — stay tuned to follow further NCTR developments and read more about Apillon’s tokenomics here.

9. What is the pathway for building projects with Apillon?

In the testing stage, the use of the Apillon platform is free, and you can get your invitation by following the instructions in this blog. When proceeding to the official launch of the Apillon platform, there will be an upgrade to a freemium business model, which means the basic services will be provided free of charge, whereas more advanced features will be charged for.

In the later stages, you will be able to pay for the Web3 services available on the platform simply with the NCTR token as described above. The platform will manage the utility of parachains’ features in their native tokens in the back end, so you will be able to focus more on the developing part of your Web3 project. You can read more about the role of NCTR in Apillon’s business model and general tokenomics here.

10. What Apillon partnerships have already been announced, and what Web3 features are expected to be incorporated into the platform in the future?

After Apillon announced official partnerships with Crust Network and Phala Network, Web3 hosting and storage services have already been incorporated into the Apillon platform with Web3 computing services to follow soon. In the near future, we’re also planning to incorporate decentralized digital identity as well as other Web3 services.

At this point, we’re proud to say we’re working closely with the majority of Polkadot ecosystem teams, including KILT Protocol, and Moonbeam Network.

Stay up-to-date with any upcoming partnerships and collaborations and follow Apillon on our social media channels on Twitter, Discord, Telegram, GitHub, and LinkedIn.

You are also very welcome to try out the Closed Beta version of the Apillon platform and give the Apillon Referral program a whirl. Register in just a few clicks and feel the Web3 world at your fingertips.

⧓ About Apillon

The Apillon platform serves as a unified gateway to the Web3 services provided by linked Polkadot parachains. Following the multi-chain vision, Apillon powers the transition of developers to Web3, simplifying its adoption in the real economy, and expanding its versatility as the ecosystem grows. With Apillon, Web3 services are within reach for every developer, regardless of their background and experience with blockchain technology.

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