Polkadot is a network protocol that allows arbitrary data—not just tokens—to be transferred across blockchains. This means Polkadot is a true multi-chain application environment where things like cross-chain registries and cross-chain computation are possible. Polkadot can transfer this data across public, open, permissionless blockchains as well as private, permissioned blockchains. This makes it possible to build applications that get permissioned data from a private blockchain and use it on a public blockchain. For instance, a school's private, permissioned academic records chain could send a proof to a degree-verification smart contract on a public chain.
Polkadot is one of the leading international cryptocurrencies with a capitalization of approx 4.1BILLION dollars. In the last 24 hours it has gained 1.53% while in the last 7 days it has gained 15.94%.
Right now the cryptocurrency is experiencing a positive moment, registering a decent increase in value.