Polkadot Hits All-Time Highs, Breaks Above $50 As Parachain Auctions Approach

Smart contract platform Polkadot (DOT) is leading the altcoin market charge, hitting all-time highs ahead of the highly-anticipated parachain auctions.

Parachains are the limited number of blockchains running in parallel on the Polkadot and Kusama networks. There will eventually be as many as 100 parachains all secured by a central chain called the Relay Chain. The parachain auctions provide a fair, permissionless way for projects to earn a spot on the Polkadot or Kusama Relay Chains.

After a successful round of auctions for Kusama's parachains, Polkadot is gearing up for its first batch, and investors appear to be confident for what's to come based on DOT's price action. Contenders for Polkadot's parachains include decentralized application (DApp) Acala, financing protocol Centrifuge, and Layer 1 EVM (Ethereum virtual machine) implementation Moonbeam Network.

Auctions will take place candlestick style, where there is no fixed amount of time that it lasts, leaving bidders unsure when it will end. This aims to prevent bidders from "sniping" other offers at the last second.

Polkadot kicked off a rally earlier last month, and is currently up 60% in the last 30 days, and 15.% in the last week. With it's recent upward price movement, Polkadot now ranks as the 7th biggest cryptocurrency, ahead of Ripple's XRP and memecoin Shiba Inu (SHIB).