At SnarkLabs, we’ve had the opportunity to architect and deploy custom blockchains using Substrate, the powerful modular framework developed by Parity Technologies. While Substrate opens the door to high-performance, interoperable, and fully customizable blockchains, building on it comes with both powerful capabilities and hard-won lessons.
In this post, we’ll share practical insights from our work on Substrate-based projects—what worked, what didn’t, and what every team should consider when diving into custom blockchain development.
Why Substrate?
Substrate gives developers the building blocks to create application-specific blockchains with fine-grained control over consensus, governance, state transition, and runtime logic—all using Rust, a systems programming language known for safety and speed.
Key Benefits:
- Fully customizable runtime logic
- Seamless Polkadot interoperability (if needed)
- Built-in upgradeability
- Robust developer tooling
But flexibility comes with complexity. Here’s what we learned.
Lessons from the Field
1. Start with the Runtime Design
Your runtime is your blockchain’s business logic. Designing pallets (Substrate modules) from the start with clear ownership and upgradeability patterns is critical.
What we learned:
It’s tempting to start prototyping with existing pallets, but custom chains quickly outgrow defaults. Start from a spec document, map out the logic, and then scaffold custom pallets intentionally.
2. Performance Optimization is Non-Negotiable
Substrate runtimes are compiled to WASM and executed in a resource-constrained environment. We’ve seen performance bottlenecks appear due to:
- Heavy on-chain storage reads/writes
- Poor indexing strategy
- Redundant event emissions
Tip: Benchmark early with pallet-benchmarking and avoid runtime bloat.
3. Don’t Ignore the Node Layer
A lot of focus is placed on runtime logic, but the node layer (networking, consensus, telemetry) is just as critical.
What we learned:
Custom consensus implementations (like Aura + Grandpa) and off-chain workers need dedicated attention. Misconfigured nodes can lead to desyncs, downtime, or failed upgrades.
4. Embrace Substrate’s Upgrade Mechanism
One of Substrate’s best features is forkless runtime upgrades. You can push upgrades via on-chain governance without asking users to download a new binary.
Best practice:
Maintain versioned runtime modules and test upgrades thoroughly on testnets. Use tools like try-runtime to simulate upgrades before deploying.
5. Plan for Interoperability Early
Even if you’re not connecting to Polkadot or Kusama today, designing your chain to be XCMP-ready (Cross-Chain Message Passing) can future-proof your project.
Why it matters:
Modularity and interoperability are fast becoming standard in the multi-chain future. Don’t build in a silo.
6. Tooling is Powerful—If You Use It Right
Substrate has excellent CLI tools (substrate-node, subkey, polkadot.js), but the learning curve is real.
Our advice:
Invest in developer onboarding docs, Dockerized environments, and automated scripts. The easier your setup, the faster your team can iterate.
Final Thoughts
Substrate gives you complete control over your blockchain’s rules, economics, governance, and scalability. But with great power comes great engineering discipline.
At SnarkLabs, we help teams build production-grade Substrate chains with clean architecture, efficient runtimes, and upgrade-safe design. If you’re looking to build a truly custom blockchain—whether for gaming, DeFi, enterprise, or identity—we’re ready to help you get there.
Got a blockchain idea that needs Substrate?
Let’s build it together. Contact Us
