While the timetable is subject to minor adjustments, the first auction is scheduled to begin Nov. 11.
The highly anticipated parachain auction process will begin next month, in which projects will compete for place on the Polkadot cryptocurrency network.
The Polkadot Council anticipates beginning the first auction on November 11. Minutes ago, a suggestion was made to the governance forum.
In retrospect, the parachain auction process was critical to realising Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood’s vision of a connected blockchain architecture. (Parachains have been operating effectively on Polkadot’s existing “canary” network, Kusama, with 11 parachain slot auctions occurring since Statemine launched on June 3.)
“Nearly five years after the Polkadot [white paper] originally presented the concept of a heterogeneous multichain architecture, parachains are now officially ready for Polkadot deployment,” Polkadot creator Robert Habermeier said in a blog post shared with CoinDesk.
Prior to publishing parachains on Polkadot, the last technical steps required were resolving parachain conflicts and completing Polkadot’s exhaustive code audit, both of which have been accomplished, according to Habermeier.
The Department of Transportation is sponsoring this competition.
Over 49,000 unique addresses have contributed 2.4 million KSM, Kasama’s native token, to crowdloans through the current Kusama parachain auctions. DOT, the Polkadot network’s native asset, will be utilised in future auctions.
Numerous decentralised initiatives, including the decentralised identification protocol Kilt and decentralised finance (DeFi) building blocks such as Acala’s Karura Network, Moonbeam’s Moonriver Network, Astar’s Shiden Network, and Phala’s Khala Network, have attained parachain status so far.
Habermeier informed CoinDesk through Telegram of the projects vying for a Polkadot spot:
“While I cannot speak for any specific parachain or anticipate who will win, Polkadot’s parachain auction procedure clearly favours initiatives that can amass significant community backing through its crowdloan mechanism. This was apparent on Kusama, and I’m certain it will be the case with Polkadot’s early parachains as well.”
The DOT’s demand to acquire a spot, according to Habermeier, is very fair. “Having said that,” he said, “Polkadot’s economics are structured in such a way that a goal of 20% of DOT will eventually be bonded for the advantage of parachains.”
It is expected that a ‘boring’ parachain will be introduced.
As was the case with Kusama, each seven-day auction on Polkadot will begin with a one-day, twenty-one-hour pre-auction period and end with a five-day post-auction phase. The auction concludes on the seventh day, at which point an on-chain, verifiable random function determines the exact time of the auction’s conclusion retrospectively (VRF).
The auction may conclude at any time during the closing period, thus eliminating “auction sniping” in favour of improved price discovery at the last minute.
Polkadot intends to onboard the first five successful projects concurrently on Dec. 15, 2021, rather than immediately after each auction (as has occurred on Kusama). Polkadot’s auctions will award parachain leases for a total of 96 weeks (split into eight 12-week leasing periods), compared to Kusama’s 48 weeks.
The first five auctions will take place, followed by one new sale each week, according to this plan, which is now being voted on by the public.
Following that, a second round of six auctions, one every two weeks, will be conducted. Six auctions would be held in the second round in advance of lease period seven, which starts March 9, 2022.
Polkadot administrators said that the weekly rolling auction procedure will continue until the total number of parachains on Polkadot reaches no more than 75% of the amount on Kusama.
According to Habermeier, this cautious approach to parachain onboarding during the first three months is important since the first commercial release code is seldom completely mature and may include undiscovered vulnerabilities.
According to Habermeier, the Kusama parachain launch served as a dress rehearsal, with any potentially disruptive aspects worked out before to the big event.
“Just as the Kusama genesis launch was rather chaotic – as promised – we anticipate that the lessons learned and issues resolved during the Kusama parachain launch will result in a similarly ‘boring’ parachain debut on Polkadot,” he said.