Ben Strack

<div id="highlights-block_6352f0ee568b4" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Wood took on the Parity Technologies CEO role in 2020 but is looking to focus more on the business’s technology side</li>
 <li>Wagner joined Parity a year after its founding in 2016 and was its chief commercial officer</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Polkadot co-founder Gavin Wood is stepping down as CEO of Parity Technologies, the developers behind the proof-of-stake blockchain.



Parity co-founder Björn Wagner is set to replace Wood in the role, Wood wrote in <a href="https://www.parity.io/blog/parity-leadership-update/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a Friday blog post</a>. Wood is set to remain the company’s majority shareholder and plans to transition to Parity’s “chief architect.”



“I’ll be pointing my regained focus towards exploring how we can contribute to making Polkadot and Web3 more relevant to large swathes of the population,” Wood said. “This will begin by helping the community design and build several interesting chain-integrated social primitives which I think are crucial for us to deliver a true Web3 platform.”



Parity was co-founded by Wood — as well as Aeron Buchanan, TJ Saw, Ken Kappler and Jutta Steiner — as EthCore in 2015. Before that, Wood co-designed the Ethereum protocol in 2013 with Vitalik Buterin and worked as chief technology officer of the Ethereum Foundation for about two years.



Wagner joined Parity as a co-founder a year later and went on to hold the title of the company’s chief commercial officer, according to his LinkedIn.



Wood took the chief executive reins in 2020, after the last of the initial founders exited Parity. 



“Over these last two years, quite possibly the largest element of the job as CEO has been to preside over the outfitting of our C-suite,” Wood said. “I saw this essentially as a means of freeing myself up to return to work full-time where I belong, on technology.”



<a href="https://web3.foundation/press/polkadot-is-live" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Parity launched Polkadot</a> with <a href="https://web3.foundation/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Web3 Foundation</a> in May 2020 after several years of developing the blockchain. Wood, in a statement at the time, called Polkadot “the biggest bet in this ecosystem against chain maximalism.”



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/polkadot-reaches-major-milestone-with-launch-of-parachain-auctions/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Polkadot launched parachain auctions</a> last November — allowing projects vying for a spot in the ecosystem to launch their own crowdfunding efforts using the blockchain’s native token, DOT.



DOT’s market capitalization of roughly $6.8 billion is 11th highest among crypto coins — ahead of polygon (MATIC) and behind dogecoin (DOGE).



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Gavin Wood

Polkadot Co-founder Gavin Wood Offloads CEO Title

Sam Martin

<div id="highlights-block_6183faadcdeda" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>At launch, Polkadot can support up to 100 parachains, which are auctioned off to the highest bidder using the Polkadot token, DOT</li>
 <li>DOT is in price discovery, after hitting an all-time high of $55 at 9:00 am ET.</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Polkadot (DOT), the ninth-largest digital asset with a market capitalization of $53.6 billion, is set to launch parachain auctions today. The launch of the auctions will finally enable projects vying for a spot in the Polkadot ecosystem to launch their own crowdfunding efforts using DOTs pledged to their cause.



Some of the most highly anticipated projects planning to bid to launch on Polkadot include <a href="https://moonbeam.network">Moonbeam</a>, an Ethereum-compatible smart contract parachain, <a href="https://centrifuge.io">Centrifuge</a>, a decentralized bridge between the real world and decentralized finance (DeFi) that will let users finance their real-world assets without banks or other intermediaries, and the <a href="https://acala.network">Acala Network</a>, another Ethereum-compatible smart contract platform optimized for DeFi.



These three projects are among approximately 10 projects <a href="https://parachains.info/auctions/polkadot" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">vying</a> for funding via crowdloans enabled by the auctions.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Connecting the DOTs</h3>



Polkadot (DOT), created in part by Ethereum co-founder and creator of the Solidity smart contract language Gavin Wood, is a blockchain designed to support various interconnected, application-specific sub-chains called parallelized chains, or parachains for short.&nbsp;



Polkadot is an entire ecosystem of parachains that plugs into a single base platform called the relay chain. The relay chain’s role is to provide security to its network of parachains instead of supporting application functionality. This stands in contrast to Layer-1 chains like Ethereum and Solana which support DApps directly on the base layer. Parachains can be thought of as similar to the proposed sharding specification of Ethereum’s planned 2.0 upgrade, as well as the existing Layer-2 scaling solutions like Arbitrum, Optimism and Starkware.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What is a DOT token?</h3>



The DOT token serves four primary functions: governance over the network, payment for fees, interoperability and bonding. In order for new parachains to be created, tokens must be bonded to ensure that incentives amongst all parties are aligned.&nbsp;



On November 1, the <a href="https://twitter.com/Polkadot/status/1455161952783814656?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Polkadot council</a> passed a motion to enable parachain registration and crowdloans, which was then passed on to DOT token holders for voting. The vote ends in approximately three hours. The <a href="https://polkadot.subscan.io/referenda/42" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">vote tally</a> shows unanimous support among DOT governance.



Once the voting has concluded and has passed, teams will be able to register their parachain and later open their crowdloan on November 11, 2021.



As described by the Moonbeam Foundation, “a crowdloan is a way for new projects to garner the support they need to connect to the Polkadot network as a parachain. A crowdloan participant can show their support for a project by locking up their DOT for the length of the parachain lease in exchange for a reward, usually in the form of the project’s native token.”



DOT holders can bond these assets to the Polkadot network to signal support for a particular project. If the project wins, the bonded DOT is locked by the network for the duration of the parachain slot, after which the tokens are unlocked and may be re-claimed by those who contributed, <a href="https://www.kraken.com/learn/parachain-auctions" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according</a> to a primer provided by the Kraken exchange.&nbsp;



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Parachain auction vs. ICO</h3>



Parachain auctions differ from initial coin offerings (ICOs) by not forcing investors to transfer ownership of their DOT to the bidding team or any third party. User funds can be returned if the project loses the auction. In case the project wins, funds are returned once their access to the parachain slot expires.



In mid-October, Gavin Wood <a href="https://twitter.com/gavofyork/status/1449680359138996230?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a> the Polkadot treasury — consisting of 18,936,300 DOT, worth more than $1 billion at today’s prices — will be used to build out the Polkadot ecosystem. This fund will be allocated to wherever DOT token holders see fit via crowdloans powered by the auctions.



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Investors are clearly feeling bullish on the future of DOT, with the price surpassing its prior all-time high of $49.78, seen on May 15, 2021, and the tokens are trading just below $55 at time of publication. The market capitalization of DOT sits at $53.6 billion, making it the ninth-largest digital asset. The 12-month performance has been impressive, rallying 1,215% over that time frame. 



This story was updated on November 4, 2021, at 12:20 pm ET.