Kusama has announced the dates for parachain auctions this summer. The auctions mark a new era of decentralized ledger technology, as Kusama will run as the first iteration of the parachain technology that will power Polkadot in the future.
Kusama will be used as a working test network for teams and projects to run through their ideas before setting up on Polkadot. Polkadot will present more hurdles for development teams to deal with as it aims for high security and sustainability. On the other hand, Kusama comes with the caveat: Expect Chaos.
The crypto community has been anticipating the introduction of a working parachain system, and Kusama will be the so-called "canary in the coalmine" to see what can happen when this technology goes live in the real world. Hopes are set high as there are a ton of possible use cases that could lead to disruptions in nearly every industry once blockchains are built to handle scaling issues faced today.
Parachain Tech a New Frontier for Blockchains
The idea of a parachain is really quite simple, but seemingly more complex on the backend than one would think: multiple chains united by a central chain (a bit of a paradox in decentralized technology) work in unison to create a super blockchain. In this paradigm, having more chains than one seems like a good idea, as scalability seems to no longer be an issue.
Single chains, like Ethereum, have already shown stresses due to high activity and the recent overwhelming growth of DeFi. The demand for using blockchain technology seems to be outpacing the ability for technology to meet this demand, and one answer to this problem could be the use of parachains, or sidechains designed for different purposes that can be linked by one network.
New Frontiers for Disrupting the Status Quo
According to a post on Polkadot’s Medium:
"While Kusama is wild and fast, Polkadot is more conservative, prioritizing stability and dependability, with slower, more methodical governance and upgrade processes. Kusama is great for bold experimentation and early-stage deployment."
Kusama could lead to some wild innovations in a space that already dreams up wild new possibilities everyday. Additionally, data harvested from Kusama will help Polkadot create a substantial resource for future applications whose needs are met on a chain that specifically addresses their requirements. In effect, Kusama is going to help push the boundaries as it helps figure out a lot of limitations and ways to deal with problems that might crop up with future multi-chain systems like Polkadot.
Parachain Auction Dates Set for Five Open Slots
If everything goes according to plan and no issues are found with Kusama’s relay-chain logic, parachain auctions will be held from the middle of June until the middle of July. There will be five auctions for five parachain slots, and bids will be made in KSM, Kusama’s native token.
The winner of the first auction will be determined as the highest bidder after a randomly selected point over the course of five days between June 15 12:00 GMT and June 22 11:00 GMT. The second parachain auction will begin an hour after the first winner is announced, and further auctions will commence thereafter until all five slots are filled.
More detailed information about auction dates can be found here.