Polkadot, enabling custom side-chains to connect with public blockchains, released a roadmap outlining the next steps in their parachain rollout. Parachains facilitate the vision of Polkadot’s scalable multi-chain architecture enabled by on-chain governance.
The rollout coincides with Polkadot’s DOT token soaring above $30, setting an all-time high for the crypto as Polkadot announces it’s in the first of three stages prior to the live network.
DOT’s price surge means the cryptocurrency now sits as the fourth biggest based on total market capitalization, according to CoinGecko data. Passing Cardano (ADA), Polkadot’s market capitalization rests roughly $4 billion behind Tether (USDT).
Speculation was Polkadot would enable parachain slot auctions in the first few months of 2020 after Bithumb Global announced the launch of Clover, launching as a parachain and powered by DOT technology, in October 2020.
"We expect to integrate into the Polkadot network in Q1 2021," Clover CEO Chris Li indicated at the time. Li explained Polkadot support was critical for Clover’s plans for a custom blockchain as Bithumb had previous chain creation work had failed.
The released rollout plan marks the first time the parachain timeline has been seen in order.
Polkadot indicates they are still in the Rococo phase of testing. Launched on August 4, 2020, the Rococo testnet is designed to test Polkadot inter-shard communication protocols. The launch of Rococo was a step towards the project’s vision of implementing Cross-Chain Message Passing and avoiding use of the relay chain to forward messages.
Once code is approved, parachain teams will be able to test interaction with other chains. According to Polkadot, voting to enable parachains and slot auctions via Kusama will be submitted once code is audited and benchmarked.
Polkadot notes a new auction will commence "roughly every two weeks" on Kusama and Polkadot. The winning parachain will be deployed to the network at the start of its lease period. Auctions continue on a rolling basis as slots open and old leases expire.
Slot leases are allocated via non-permissioned candle auctions. According to Polkadot, parachain slot auctions will have a known open phase and be retroactively determined to have ended in the past, rather than using a random number to decide the opening phase duration.
The scalable Kusama network will serve as an "additional proving ground for parachains, allowing the community to observe network effects and conduct further testing and optimizations."
Polkadot writes in the announcement how community members will enable and deploy parachains and begin Polkadot slot auctions once parachains run smoothly on Kusama.
Once parachains are live on Polkadot, the project considers the network’s launch official "according to its original vision and design." Further upgrades will be enabled by network governance, placing the future of Polkadot "up to the community."