Polkadot to debut parachain auctions after governance vote

Published at: Oct. 13, 2021

Polkadot has laid out a schedule to debut parachain auctions on Nov. 11 following unanimous approval from the blockchain’s on-chain governance council members. The news marks a landmark achievement, as it fulfills the final core technical element of the white paper published five years ago. 

Parachains are uniquely distinctive layer-one blockchain platforms that operate laterally alongside the main Polkadot network, in addition to being tethered to the Polkadot Relay Chain. Their purposeful function can be witnessed across a multitude of areas from decentralized finance to smart contracts. 

Speaking at the Sub0 Conference as representatives of Parity Technologies, Polkadot founders Gavin Wood and Robert Habermeier confirmed that Polkadot now holds the technical capabilities to implement parachains, auctions and crowdloans for the first time.

In an immediate response, Proposal #118 was motioned by governance member Joe Petrowski, expressing details and recommendations for the deployment.

The first Polkadot parachain auction of the initial batch is slated to begin on Nov. 11 and will continue at a rate of one per week for five consecutive weeks until the final auction on Dec. 9.

The initial bidding period will last for two days, followed by a five-day ending period. Two unique features about the proposal of this auction schedule are that unlike the immediacy of Kusama’s project onboarding after auctions, Polkadot auctions will be held in transit for a period of one month.

In addition to this, there will be a 75% capacity of projects to that witnessed on Kusuma, in a bid for quality over quantity.

Within the proposal, and indeed further quoted later in this piece, canary network Kusama was cited as having a positive impact on the evolution of this concept in both abstract and practical terms.

Kusama, a sandbox platform designed for developers to experiment with blockchain applications before their official launch on the Polkadot blockchain, has recently implemented the success of 11 parachain slot auctions.

In addition to commending the near-flawless process of the Kusama auctions, the official report also noted that 2.4 million Kusama (KSM) tokens have been contributed by 49,000 uniquely active addresses during the auctions.

Cointelegraph reached out to Peter Mauric, head of public affairs at Parity Technologies, for an exclusive commentary on the inspiration behind the proposal as well as the potential impact the implementation may have on the Polkadot ecosystem:

“Kusama was launched in order to give the teams building the core Polkadot protocol, parachains and their constituent communities an opportunity to battle-test their tech and teams. While there were a few bits of expected chaos along the way, the experience over the past few months deploying parachains on Kusama have given us confidence that they are ready for prime time on Polkadot.”

Related: Polkadot Web3 wallet Talisman closes $2.35M seed funding round

He went on to discuss the positive impacts that the implementation will have on the Polkadot ecosystem, saying:

“This is the moment everyone has been waiting for since the Polkadot paper was introduced over five years ago. The promise of parachains has always been core to what Polkadot aims to achieve: scalable, customizable and truly decentralized infrastructure for the next generation of layer-one protocols, in the form of these parachain networks.”
Tags
Related Posts
Acala wins first Polkadot parachain auction with over 32M DOT staked
On Thursday morning, Acala, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol operating on the Polkadot (DOT) network, announced it had won the first-ever Polkadot parachain auction. Acala raised a total of 32.5 million DOT, worth roughly $1.28 billion, from 24,934 contributors via an initial coin offering (ICO) structured as a crowdloan. As the proceeds are classified as 'crypto debt,' Acala would eventually need to pay back the DOT it had solicited from investors. Users' DOTs are locked for the duration of the rental agreement for Polkadot's parallel chains up for sale. It’s a testament to the strength of @Polkadot that so many …
Adoption / Nov. 18, 2021
SBI Group launches crypto-asset fund for Japanese investors
Tokyo’s biggest finserv firm, SBI Group, will now allow general Japanese investors to purchase cryptocurrencies via its newly launched ‘crypto asset fund’. The fund is composed of seven cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), XRP, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Chainlink (LINK) and Polkadot (DOT). The crypto-asset fund, to be traded and operated by the SBI Alternative Fund, was established on Dec. 02 with a dedicated capital of 5 million yen, worth approximately $45,000 at the time of writing. However, the company may choose to release the capital in smaller break-ups of 1 million yen each. According to the official …
Adoption / Dec. 18, 2021
Ukraine accepts DOT, founder Gavin Wood donates $5.8 million
Calls from the crypto community for Ukraine to accept other cryptocurrencies have been answered. The official Ukraine Twitter account shared that it will now accept donations from Polkadot (DOT), while other cryptocurrencies will soon be added. The people of Ukraine are grateful for the support and donations from the global crypto community as we protect our freedom. We are now accepting Polkadot donations too: $DOT: 1x8aa2N2Ar9SQweJv9vsuZn3WYDHu7gMQu1RePjZuBe33Hv. More cryptocurrencies to be accepted soon. — Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) March 1, 2022 Gavin Wood, the co-founder of Polkadot had previously shared that if the Ukraine wallets were to add DOT, he would …
Adoption / March 1, 2022
Stake or DApp? With liquid staking, you don’t have to choose
Last summer, Polkadot made its own little bit of history after confirming the first five projects to occupy parachain slots on its canary network Kusama. Disparate blockchains that bolt onto Polkadot’s main Relay Chain for security, yet are otherwise independent, parachains represent a new way of doing business in blockchain, a maximalist vision aimed at enhancing scalability and governance while permitting the possibility of forkless upgrades. The five projects were Karura, Moonriver, Shiden, Khala and Bifrost. Fast-forward to today, and the first batch of parachains are set to expire, releasing over 1 million locked Kusama (KSM) tokens into the market. …
Adoption / May 21, 2022
Interlay launches trustless BTC stablecoin bridge on Polkadot
Interlay, a London-based blockchain firm, launched a Bitcoin (BTC)-based cross-chain bridge on Polkadot (DOT). Named interBTC (iBTC), the bridge allows the use of Bitcoin on non-native blockchains for decentralized finance (DeFi), cross-chain transfers and nonfungible tokens (NFTs), among others. interBTC operates as a BTC-backed stablecoin, secured by a decentralized network of overcollateralized vaults, which according to Interlay, resembles MakerDAO’s DAI token, a stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain. The iBTC vaults use mixed-asset collateral to insure BTC reserves, making iBTC redeemable 1:1 with BTC over the Bitcoin blockchain. As a preventive measure during unforeseen vault failure, the collateral is programmed to …
Adoption / Aug. 11, 2022