Polkadot’s Parachain Vision Materializes Following Successful Kusama Auction

After months of hype around the launch, the first Kusama parachain auction went off without a hitch. The now active parachain has already begun successfully processing transactions, paving the way for future slot auctions.

Kusama’s First Functional Parachain Goes Live

The anticipation surrounding Polkadot parachains over the last few months has at last been realized following the first successful parachain auction on the Kusama canary network. This development marks the first time that a 100% decentralized, heterogeneously-sharded blockchain has been launched.

The parachain, awarded to “Shell,” has since been upgraded to “Statemine,” a common-good parachain with several different utilities and functionalities. Other parachains will leverage Statemine’s utility thanks to the XCM protocol, which also allows KSM tokens to move between Kusama and the parachain seamlessly.

With this proof of concept in place and operational, “Parachain Slot Auctions” can commence, but they will require the input of the KSM community. The selection of parachains for the Kusama relay-chain revolves around staking the greatest amount of KSM tokens for as long as possible. Once the Kusama Council and KSM holders decide on the auction timeline, the next round of auctions can commence.

Accordingly, the Polkadot team has recommended the following auction timeline for the council and KSM stakeholders to approve:

• June 15th, 2021 – 12:00 CEST (Central European Summer Time): Opening of bidding for first Kusama parachain slot auction.
• June 17th, 2021 – 09:00 CEST: End period of first Kusama parachain slot auction commences. Any bids made prior to this date will be counted in the final result, with any bids made after this date and time facing a lower likelihood of consideration in the final results on a linear-reducing basis.
• June 22nd, 2021 – 09:00 CEST: Bidding officially ends for the first Kusama parachain slot auction. No bids will be accepted for this auction beyond this point.
• June 22nd, 2021 – 11:00 CEST: The first parachain slot auction winner will be announced based on the highest bidder over the previous five days.
• June 22nd, 2021 – 12:00 CEST: The second parachain slot auction will begin.
• June 29th, 2021 – 12:00 CEST: The third parachain slot auction will begin.
• July 6th, 2021 – 12:00 CEST: The fourth parachain slot auction will begin.
• July 13th, 2021 – 12:00 CEST: The fifth parachain slot auction will begin.