The First Batch of Parachains Goes Live on Polkadot as the Platform Completes Its Launch

Key highlights:

• The first batch of parachains is now live on the Polkadot network
• The first 5 parachain slot auction winners were Acala, Moonbeam, Astar, Parallel Finance and Clover Finance
• The second batch of auctions will start on December 23

The first batch of parachains is now live on Polkadot

A few days after Clover Finance won the 5th Polkadot parachain slot auction, the first batch of parachains is now live on the Polkadot network. Per a post by the Polkadot team, this represents the completion of Polkadot’s launch process, as parachains are the last piece of core functionality as outlined by the Polkadot whitepaper. 

Parachains are customizable blockchains that connect to the Polkadot Relay Chain and benefit from its security – the Relay Chain is secured by a robust network of stakers. Polkadot also offers a significant amount of interoperability between all the different parachains connected to the Relay Chain.

The new parachains are now up and running on Polkadot. Statemint did not have to go through an action, as it is considered a “common good” parachain for generic assets.

The five winners of the first batch of 5 Polkadot parachain slot auctions were Acala, Moonbeam, Astar, Parallel Finance and Clover Finance. The second batch, which will consist of 6 auctions, will begin on December 23 and will last until March 10. The winners from the second batch are expected to be onboarded onto the Polkadot network on March 11. 

In most cases, projects that want to launch a parachain and connect it to the Polkadot Relay Network will use Polkadot’s “crowdloan” mechanism. This allows them to raise enough DOT to submit a competitive bid in a parachain slot auction. Users that contribute DOT to a crowdloan are typically rewarded with the project’s native token if the project wins an auction. 

The genesis block of the Polkadot Relay Chain, which serves as the backbone of the Polkadot network, went live in May 2020. In August of the same year, the network’s native asset DOT was redenominated. DOT balances were increased by a factor of 100x by changing the token’s precision from 12 to 10 decimal places (the effective supply of DOT was not affected by the change). 

DOT currently enjoys a market capitalization of $21.5 billion, which makes it the 12th-largest crypto asset by market capitalization. DOT hit an all-time high at around $55 in early November, but has since seen a heavy price correction. At the time of writing, DOT is changing hands at just below $24.