Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL) or even the Binance Smart Chain (BSC): the Ethereum killers have not ceased to make news in recent months. However, the competition could well take another turn with the arrival in force of Polkadot (DOT).
The arrival in force of the parachains on Polkadot
Polkadot is a blockchain imagined by Gavin Wood and Robert Habermeier, 2 former Ethereum contributors. The main objective of Polkadot is to ensure the interoperability of blockchains. It is developed by Parity Technologies, the company behind the eponymous Ethereum client.
Polkadot is defined as a layer 0 infrastructure, ensuring the security and validation of transactions. It coordinates the various parachains, a kind of first layer blockchain that is deployed on the network. Each of these parachains has its own ecosystem and its own rules.
“As the only layer zero protocol in blockchain, Polkadot is designed to disrupt the entire layer 1 protocol landscape in the coming years by dramatically reducing the overhead required to secure and connect layer 1s in the form of parachains.”
Statement from Peter Mauric, Head of Public Affairs at Parity Technologies
Initiated in 2017, Polkadot is a project still in development. This one recently made news via Kusama (KSM), its so-called “canary” network that acts as a full-scale test network. While the deployment of parachains has been underway on Kusama for several months, the Polkadot network was still on hold.
However, on October 14, Joe Petrowski released a proposed amendment to host the first parachute auctions, beginning November 11:
“This is a proposal to schedule the first round of parachute auctions on Polkadot and to obtain Board buy-in for a recommended strategy to schedule auctions on a 3-6 month basis.”
The program thus proposes 2 rounds of sales:
- A first one starting on November 11, for a duration of 7 days, during which 5 auctions will be conducted ;
- A second one planned for December 23, still lasting 7 days, with 6 auctions this time.
Good news for DOT holders
The Polkadot blockchain has a native token: the DOT. In addition to acting as a governance token, providing decision-making power to its holders, this token allows users to secure the network via a staking module.
Following the announcement of the auction on Polkadot, the token recorded a 17% increase from 35 to 41 dollars during the night of October 13 to 14.
The rise then continued until it reached 44 dollars on October 16. The price has since fallen back slightly, with DOT at $41.12 at the time of writing.
It now remains to be seen whether Polkadot will manage to catch up with other smart contract blockchains. Moreover, these are increasingly interconnected via bridges, creating a new multichain paradigm for the DeFi ecosystem.
