Polkadot and Cosmos are both leading interoperability protocols, but their technical approaches differ significantly, impacting their investment potential. Polkadot’s architecture centers around a Relay Chain that provides shared security for its parachains, ensuring trustless interoperability through Cross-Chain Message Passing (XCMP). This unified security model is attractive for projects requiring high security, such as DeFi or enterprise applications. Polkadot’s Substrate framework, written in Rust, offers flexibility for developers to build custom blockchains that compile to WebAssembly (Wasm), supporting diverse use cases. However, parachain slots are limited (around 100), and securing a slot via auction requires significant DOT investment, which can be capital-intensive.