Polkadot (DOT): Price Updates, Recent Developments, Future Events, Community

• There’s a lot of buzz around the Polkadot ecosystem as the community awaits the November 11th parachain auctions.
• Just days after Gavin Wood announced the $776 million development fund, the first crowdloans for the next set of auctions has already begun.
• As the Polkadot ecosystem anticipates the parachain auctions, DOT has seen increased institutional cash inflows, leading to a price rise.
• Polkadot has introduced ‘Gifts,’ a medium for Polkadot users to send DOT to friends and family who don’t own Polkadot wallets.

The famed Ethereum killer, Polkadot, has had an abundance of good news rolling in for its community and development team. Following the announcement of the parachain auctions, Polkadot has become one of the most talked-about projects in October.

The Polkadot ecosystem has been abuzz with new developments, integrations, and launches as the community anticipates the launch of parachains that have been in the works for five years. So, what are the new developments that have been stoking the excitement of the Polkadot community?

Price Updates

Polkadot (DOT) has been at the forefront of the recent Altcoin rally, gaining more than 13% over the last week. DOT has risen by more than 26% in value over the last 30 days.

The 30 day price chart for Polkadot (DOT). Source: Tradingview

Over the 24 hours prior to this writing, DOT has gained 2.5% and is now trading at $41.506. Its recent gains mean that Polkadot has a market cap of $41.004 billion, making it the 8th largest crypto.

Recent Developments

The Polkadot ecosystem has been abuzz with new updates since the announcement of the Parachain launch. Ahead of its biggest event, the launch of the first Polkadot parachain, Gavin Wood, founder of Polkadot, unveiled a $776 million development fund. 

The funds will be used for the building, improvement, and education of the Polkadot ecosystem. According to the announcement, the fund will be disbursed through community governance.

The first crowdloan for the next set of auctions on the Polkadot network has begun. Of the total 200,000 KSM that Picasso aims to raise, over 20,000 KSM has already been raised. Picasso is a Cross-chain, interoperability infrastructure and a Comprehensive Defi ecosystem powered by Polkadot.

As the parachain’s launch draws near, United States-based cryptocurrency exchange and bank, Kraken, has announced that it will support the upcoming parachain slot auctions on the Polkadot network.

Polkadot has also introduced ‘Gifts’ on both the Polkadot and Kusama networks. The new Gifts feature creates a new way for Polkadot users to send DOT or KSM to anyone, even if they don’t already have an account or wallet.

Polkadot Gifts generate a unique ‘gift secret’ (a 16-digit number), allowing recipients who don’t have wallets to claim the gift. In addition, users can use Polkadot Gifts to onboard individuals who are curious about the blockchain, but haven’t yet made a move. 

In a similar vein, on October 13th, Polkadot announced the launch of ‘Rococo Revamp.’ Initially designed to test parachain functionality, Rococo has now evolved into a testnet for teams building parachains in the ecosystem.

As the Polkadot community eagerly awaits the parachain’s launch, digital asset managers have reported a rise in the institutional capital inflow for Polkadot. For the week ending October 17th, Polkadot received an inflow of $3.6 million, signalling interest from institutional investors ahead of the parachain’s launch.

Future Events

The launch of the parachains is the most anticipated event in the Polkadot ecosystem. Reacting to the news in excitement, @AltcoinDailyio wrote;

The Polkadot Council has fixed November 11th as the date for the network’s first parachain slot auctions. The first five projects to win an auction will then be simultaneously onboarded onto Polkadot on December 15th.

Polkadot has announced the evolution of Rococo into a completely community-maintained parachain testbed. Parity Technologies and Polkadot’s community developers will be releasing different features to the Rococo network over the upcoming weeks.

The goal is for Rococo to follow the release cycles of Kusama and Polkadot and act as the community parachain testnet. This will provide a playground for parachain teams to develop and test their parachains.

On The Flipside

• Polkadot has taken a conservative approach towards onboarding projects for its parachain that has been tagged less exciting than Kusama.
• Unlike Kusama, where projects are onboarded after winning a parachain slot, projects will be simultaneously onboarded onto Parachain

Community

Polkadot has been one of the blockchain projects with the most community involvement. With the coming parachain auctions, the excitement and community involvement of the project has skyrocketed.

Members of the Polkadot community are eagerly anticipating the Parachain launch and many expect a major turn of events after November 11th, as demonstrated by @killakrypto1, who wrote;

Another user, @cryptokeeg1, shared his opinion on the upcoming parachain auctions;

Bullish Polkadot user @DonnieBigBags shared why it’s Polka-season. He wrote;

Why You Should Care?

Polkadot has been a top favourite Altcoin due to its advanced technology and fast-growing ecosystem. The upcoming parachain launch, which will add new and significant functionalities to the network, could provide the platform for Polkadot to cement itself as a competitor for the top spot.