Acala project has won the first Polkadot parachain auction

The first Polkadot auction round is over. The Acala project is the round’s winner. 32.5 million DOT tokens are locked for the winner, while the overall contribution reached 87.55 million DOTs (equivalent to $3.5 billion).

The news about auctions was announced by Polkadot developers in October. The crypto community was looking forward to the event, understanding the project’s growing potential.

The parachain model is considered as the revolutionized ICO; meanwhile, the difference lies in the way locked assets are shared. Those are returned to auction participants, while projects themselves cannot access locked values.

Polkadot is a technology claimed to increase the compatibility level between different blockchains. Parachains are other networks based on Polkadot. Networks serve as independent blockchains with their own tokens tailored to certain business goals and needs.

The Polkadot project has a limited number of slots for parachains (100) – DOT holders vote for projects, and the winner gets its slot.

Acala and Moonbeam were the two core auction competitors; meanwhile, Acala spurted into the lead within two last days of the auction.

Gavin Wood, the Polkadot founder, says such a system makes the competition among the participants fiercer: “The real competition takes place, and that’s what we wanted to get from our auctions. Traditional auctions are characterized by lower bids from the very beginning, while participants usually play all-in close to an auction’s end.”

Acala will access the Polkadot slot from December 17, 2021, to October 20, 2023.