DOT, the native cryptocurrency of the Polkadot blockchain network, crossed the US$50 mark for the first time on Nov. 1 and reached a new all-time high (ATH) of US$50.87, surpassing its previous peak of US$48.73 in May, according to CoinGecko data. DOT, currently the 8th-largest cryptocurrency by market value, was trading at US$48.69 as of publishing time.
Fast facts
- DOT’s new ATH comes with Polkadot’s long-awaited parachain auctions expected to take place this month. A motion for parachain teams to register their parachains and open their crowd loan on Nov. 4 has gone to a public vote after being passed by the Polkadot Council, according to a Polkadot tweet.
- Polkadot is a blockchain protocol that connects multiple specialized blockchains into a multi-chain network in which individual blockchains — or parachains — connect to and are secured by the Polkadot relay chain. Slot auctions are being used to select the parachains to be added to Polkadot due to the limited number of parachains that can be supported on the main relay chain.
- The first batch of five Polkadot parachain auctions is scheduled to start on Nov. 11, with a new auction each week, according to a Polkadot blog post last month.
- Kusama (KSM), the native cryptocurrency of the Kusama network, is also up over 10% in the past 24 hours and was trading at US$418.18 as of publishing time, according to CoinGecko data. Kusama is Polkadot’s canary network for blockchain developers to build and test out their code as well as products and services. Eleven parachain slot auctions have taken place on Kusama and 12 parachains are currently running live on Kusama, including Acala’s Karura Network, Astar’s (previously called Plasm) Shiden Network, Phala’s Khala Network, Bifrost, and KILT Protocol.
See related article: Polkadot founder Gavin Wood: Decentralization and security are not optional in the search for scalability