Polkadot (DOT) Becomes the Tenth-Largest Crypto by Market Cap Leading the Altcoin Surge

Polkadot (DOT) has recently become one of the most talked-about altcoins recently in the crypto industry, as it recently surged and became the tenth-largest crypto by market capitalization. The DOT token recently completed its second token sale just a month ago, and its first sale was in 2017. 

Recently, two large crypto exchanges have decided to list Polkadot, ahead of its redenomination from the project. The redenomination witnessed DOT denominated at one-hundredth of the value of the old DOT after the community voted. According to the Polkadot network, the DOT token has three purposes, governance, staking, and bonding on the network. 

The Polkadot’s DOT token has been available for trading since 2019, and the future of the DOT token was handed to its community for voting. The co-founder of Polkadot announced the results of the community vote on July 27. There were a few choices for the vote, the community could keep the original DOT value, or a stock-split of DOT, creating a new DOT token that was either one-tenth, one-hundredth, or one-thousandth of the old DOT.

As the announcement confirmed that the new DOT would be to split the token by a factor of 100, the new DOT value would be in effect on Aug 21. 

Binance and Kraken crypto exchanges announced that they were listing the DOT token on Aug 18, with immediate effect. However, there was some controversy around its listing time, as the exchanges caused massive confusion among traders, showing the prices at the redenominated value. The price of DOT was inflated by up to ten times during the first hour of trading, then a plunge followed. 

After the controversy with the crypto exchanges, the DOT token surged to $4, reaching a 40 percent gain. Polkadot is currently trading at $3.93 at press time. The recent DOT price surge was driven by its growing utility, redenomination, and a strong technical outlook, with its rally towards $5.

Polkadot also briefly became the seventh-largest crypto by market cap, surpassing Cardano (ADA) and Bitcoin SV (BSV). The lead technical analyst at Blockfyre said:

“$DOT is already #7 in marketcap. It feels like most of the money that’s going to be made already has been made. Thus I can’t image the upside is tremendous from here and that most buying from here on will lose.”

However, Polkadot is now the tenth largest crypto by market cap, just slightly below Cardano and Bitcoin SV.

Polkadot (DOT) Continues on Bullish Momentum, Becoming the Sixth-Largest Crypto by Market Cap

Over the last few days, Bitcoin has seen a couple of corrections, reaching from its daily high of the $11,800 level to seeing its daily low of $11,000 in just a few hours. Bitcoin has slightly recovered and is trading at $11,383 at press time.

The world’s first cryptocurrency reached a new yearly high of $12,450 around a week ago but has seen over $1,000 of losses since reaching its high in 2020. 

Although Bitcoin seems to be showing bearish signs, Polkadot (DOT) is currently trading at $5.58, up from $3 earlier this week. The Polkadot (DOT) token was approved by major exchanges earlier this week and has recorded a return on investment (ROI) of more than 80 percent in the past four days. 

Polkadot is a blockchain protocol founded by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood, which achieved $5.36 billion market capitalization recently, six days after the protocol enabled its token DOT for transfers. 

With the recent bullish momentum, Polkadot has become the sixth-largest crypto by market capitalization, surpassing Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC), according to CoinGecko. Just two days ago, Polkadot reached tenth place in the crypto market by market cap.

Simon Dedic, the CEO of BlockFyre recently commented: 

“Can you remember what $ETH caused from 2016-2017? $DOT is in the middle of causing the exact same from 2020-2021.”

Why is DOT’s price surging?

Polkadot redenominated its token on Aug. 21, where its new DOT token is now 100 times smaller than the old DOT tokens. During this evolution, the DOT value soared 40 percent. At Polkadot’s block number 1,248,328, the redenomination occurred, while the firm made it clear that it would not affect the percentage share of Polkadot.

As a project by the Web3 Foundation, Polkadot allows developers to build and join blockchains together, facilitating cross-chain communication and interoperability by connecting different blockchains on one unified network.

DOT tokens are the native tokens of the Polkadot network, and DOT token holders are able to control the direction of the network. Governance functions enabled by the network allow token holders to determine fees, auction dynamics, and scheduling the addition of parachains. Upgrades and fixes to the Polkadot platform is also up to the DOT token holders.

With the enablement of numerous blockchains being able to interoperate on the Polkadot protocol, the platform allows for more efficient scaling, as it is a sharded blockchain. 

Polkadot has gained wide media attention from its new denomination, major exchange listings, including Binance and Gemini, and the increased demand for scaling. The recent decentralized finance (DeFi) craze has also led to the surge of fees on the Etheruem blockchain network. 

Polkadot and Binance Coin Prices Surge, Flippening Bitcoin Cash and Chainlink by Market Cap

Polkadot (DOT) and Binance Coin (BNB) have climbed up the market capitalization ladder, overtaking Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Chainlink (LINK).

Polkadot’s (DOT) price has increased by 10.02 percent in the last 24 hours and has been up 24.4 percent in the past week. BNB’s price has increased by 11.33 percent in the last 24 hours, and up 55.2 percent in the past week. According to CoinMarketCap, Polkadot and Binance Coin have surpassed Chainlink and Bitcoin Cash in terms of market capitalization.

Polkadot is currently holding in the fifth position in the cryptocurrency’s market capitalization rankings, with a market cap of $4,386,723,356, BNB with $4,375,202,266, and Chainlink with $4,305,688,264 at press time. 

Polkadot is a blockchain protocol founded by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood, which achieved $5.36 billion market capitalization in late August, six days after the protocol enabled its token DOT for transfers.

Previously cryptocurrency fund Spartan Black’s Kelvin Koh predicted that Polkadot’s price would be valued at $5 per DOT and that its market capitalization would reach $5 billion. Although Polkadot’s market cap has yet to reach $5 billion again, DOT’s price has already surpassed $5. He made another prediction, stating:

“Another prediction: within a year DOT will be Top 3 market cap on Coingecko/CMC.”

DOT tokens are the native tokens of the Polkadot network, and DOT token holders are able to control the direction of the network. Governance functions enabled by the network allow token holders to determine fees, auction dynamics and scheduling the addition of parachains. Upgrades and fixes to the Polkadot platform are also up to the DOT token holders.

Ethereum has been dominating the smart contracts blockchain protocol space. Polkadot’s protocol does not directly compete with Ethereum, according to Koh, as Polkadot continues to grow, Ethereum should not see a decline. Koh added:

“I believe in a multi-chain world interconnected by bridges. Polkadot and Cosmos will not replace Ethereum. Also wouldn’t rule out chains like Near, Solana, AVA, TRON and others seeing development activity.”

As Polkadot would be able to co-exist with Ethereum, this raises the chances for the protocol to thrive, taking DOT’s price even higher. 

BNB token making big moves

Binance recently announced that the firm is building a decentralized finance ecosystem on its own blockchain, going after the DeFi craze. 

Binance is establishing a $100 million seed fund to empower emerging projects built on its Binance Smart Chain. Its chain ecosystem will support the farming of mainstream tokens such as Ripple (XRP), Litecoin (LTC), and Polkadot (DOT). It was one of the reasons that ignited the crypto market.

Polkadot’s Treasury Built as a Significant Step Towards the Vision of a Decentralized Internet

With its second token sale completed in July 2020, Polkadot (DOT) has become one of the most popular altcoins in the crypto industry as its market capitalization grew massively in the past few weeks. 

Polkadot became the tenth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization in late August and has even recently became the fifth-largest cryptocurrency, flippening Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Chainlink (LINK). Polkadot launched its mainnet a few months ago and has recently established a new decentralized platform—Polkadot Treasury, to fund projects. 

Polkadot’s Treasury funds are collected through transaction fees, staking inefficiencies, and slashing, and is then pooled together. The Polkadot Treasury will be run by community-elected council members. Funds would also be used for tipping community members for their work, including translating documents, writing Polkadot-related articles, and supporting the Polkadot Telegram community. 

A deposit of 100 DOT or 5 percent of the total submission is required for each proposal, to weed out the spam proposals. The deposit is returned to the user if the proposal is approved, or burned when the proposal is rejected. 

According to Polkadot, some teams are already submitting proposals. If the treasury does not spend all the funds, 1 percent will be burned. 1 percent of the Treasury funds will be taken out of circulation every 24 days unless they are used. 

Polkadot’s first proposals fall into a few categories, including infrastructure development, continued operations projects, and software development. The proposals would require users to use the Polkadot blockchain, but will not contain any contextual information in order to minimize on-chain storage. 

Polkadot was built to enable specialized blockchains to communicate with each other, in a secure, and trust-free environment. The Polkadot blockchain was founded by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood, and its native currency DOT achieved $5.36 billion in market capitalization recently. 

Polkadot’s redenomination

Polkadot redenominated its token on Aug. 21, where its new DOT token is now 100 times smaller than the old DOT tokens. During this evolution, the DOT value soared 40 percent. At Polkadot’s block number 1,248,328, the redenomination occurred, while the firm made it clear that it would not affect the percentage share of Polkadot.

Polkadot: A Decentralized Center for Specialized Blockchain Interoperability

Polkadot seemingly appeared from nowhere in the crypto space. Created by Ethereum co-founder, Dr. Gavin James Wood, Polkadot is quickly becoming the “blockchain of blockchains”, with a string of integrations and announcements throughout the last month or so.

With 15 years of open-source coding experience under his belt, Wood joined Vitalik Buterin in 2014 to start work on what would become the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. By 2012, Wood had ambitions to build an evolved version of Ethereum, interoperable with other blockchains. The Polkadot vision is to lay the foundations for Web3 and polychain infrastructure.

In the early days, Ethereum was the catalyst for a wealth of innovation and composability, however, with the long over-due Ethereum 2.0 upgrade continually delayed, it’s unsurprising that other blockchains have risen to prominence as developers and users yearn for more functionality and scalability within the blockchain ecosystem.It was the introduction of Polkadot that really brought the term “interoperability” to the forefront of cryptocurrency narratives. Polkadot’s native DOT token made a splash last month, reaching the top 10 crypto list by market cap on Coingecko within days of its much-hyped redenomination.Released in 2019, “Kusama” is an unaudited test run for Polkadot, offering much of the same multi-chain infrastructure that can be expected from the almost-identical codebase used to build Polkadot.

A staged roll-out strategy was adopted for the Polkadot mainnet lauch. In May this year, the Polkadot Genesis block began with a single relay chain, to be followed by several parachains, introduced incrementally to up to 100 parachains.

Polkadot aims to bring blockchains together by allowing any type of data to be accessed from any type of blockchain.

The core features are:

Relay Chain

The Relay Chain connects all of the individual chains in the ecosystem, acting as the backbone of the protocol. The relay chain resolves inter-chain issues as easily as possible, in a way that only affects the specific chains in question, without disturbing the entire ecosystem.

Parachain

Also known as parallelized chains, this is the part of the protocol that focuses on scaling, allowing the ecosystem to grow efficiently and sustainably using a standardized set of validators.

Parathreads

Parathreads are essentially the pay-as-you-go model for Parachains. This is particularly useful for blockchains that don’t require around-the-clock connection to the network. Parathreads lower the entry barrier for developers to bootstrap their projects onto the relay chain.

Bridges

Bridges allow Polkadot to connect with other blockchains outside of its ecosystem, with independent governance systems, whilst maintaining the strength of security from the Polkadot network.

Governance

Polkadot can make upgrades to protocols without the need to fork and offers efficient tools to fix bugs and make improvements across the various parts of the ecosystem without dividing the community.

“Nominators” determine the credibility and quality of a validator whilst staking DOT. “Fishermen” oversee the behavior within the network and promote good practice by monitoring and reporting bad actors. Such actors are disincentivized, as failure to meet the demands of the network can result in losing their stake.

“Collators” compile transactions and assist in achieving consensus, sending collated proofs to validators staking DOT.

DOT Token

The DOT token has had an interesting history.

The DOT token is very much community-focused. DOT tokens are used by validators to secure the network by staking, using the “nominated proof of stake” protocol.

The Polkadot Genesis block generated an initial supply of 10 million DOT tokens. The supply is not hard-capped and is intended initially to utilize a deflationary model. This would incentivize participation in the proof of stake mechanism by the validators.

Following the community governance decision to redenominate DOT tokens by 100 x, there is now approximately 1 billion DOT in circulation.

The protocol is controlled by token holders who decide on changes to the protocol and fee structures. DOT holders are responsible for maintaining the consensus mechanism through network participation. DOT tokens are also used to bond, or stake on new parachains. By doing this, validators receive rewards for participation.

Conclusion

Polkadot could be one of the most carefully crafted blockchain projects to date, allowing for better coordination between different blockchains and communication with off-chain oracle solutions. The Polkadot ecosystem opens up the blockchain community to a wealth of opportunities to quickly build, deploy, and integrate blockchain applications, creating a standard for interoperability.

Ethereum Killer Polkadot Rallies as ETH Lags Behind, What’s Next for DOT?

The Polkadot (DOT) token has managed to secure its gains in the past week, while other altcoins lagged behind Bitcoin’s price surge. Polkadot is currently trading at $4.70, slightly lower in the past 24 hours, and has been trading up by 20 percent in the past week. 

Trading against the US dollar, DOT managed to hit $4.93 as its intraday high, with not a lot of fundamentals hinting at its price moves. According to a crypto trader, Polkadot’s breakout above the crucial resistance level at $4.50 could be bullish for the cryptocurrency. The trader tweeted:

“I didn’t buy on the initial break out as price action wasn’t exactly clean. Now that the $4.50 resistance has been broken, things are looking much better. [I am] looking for a retest of the level as support to enter.”

The Polkadot protocol continues to act as one of Ethereum’s largest rivals. 2020 has seen the launch of the Ethereum killer, Polkadot, which launched its mainnet in May. 

The protocol is a third-generation blockchain, which is more scalable than Ethereum, allowing projects to deploy their own blockchains, called “parachains,” with smart contract functionality. These parachains also connect to the main Polkadot blockchain, the “relay chain.” Polkadot has added a sum of new projects to its platform, which has also attracted a lot of developers.

As Polkadot continues to expand its network of projects, and with Bitcoin’s price continuous surge, DOT could potentially see more adoption and positive sentiment in the near future. 

Is Ethereum lagging behind?

While Bitcoin (BTC) continues its bullish uptrend, BTC has captured even more dominance over the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin’s dominance is currently at 60 percent, and its price has surged 5.6 percent in the past 24 hours, and is currently trading above $13,826 at press time. 

Ethereum’s price has not been following the same trend as Bitcoin, as it continues to lag behind, although securing its place above the $400 level. Ethereum (ETH) is currently trading at $407 at press time. According to altcoin analyst DonAlt:

“In stark contrast to BTC, ETH has failed it’s monthly level and is now finding resistance there.

If ETH fails to reclaim that resistance this month I think $270 (the next support) is more likely than further upside.”

However, another crypto analyst, Crypto Michael also believes that if Ethereum holds above $385 for support, ETH could rally higher. He tweeted:

“The crucial area around $385 held, which is a good sign. However, $440 is next on the tables as long as $385 holds for support. If $385 is lost, I’d be looking at $315 next.”

Polkadot (DOT) Price Surges to a New All-Time High, Large-Cap Altcoins to Rally in 2021

While Bitcoin’s price has rallied to record highs, Polkadot (DOT) has also seen a rally of its own. Polkadot (DOT), currently ranks the sixth by market capitalization, which is at over $6.8 billion at the time of writing. In the past 24 hours, Polkadot’s price has surged over 16.83%, even recording an all-time high price today at $7.64. 

Polkadot (DOT) has surged by over 425 in the past week, setting one of the highest rallies in the altcoin market, compared to the other large cap cryptocurrencies. The world’s second largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, has also seen a considerable climb, increasing in over 16% in the past week and over 5% in the past 24 hours. 

Other large cap altcoins have also seen surges in their prices, including Litecoin, which climbed over 13% in the past week. Cardano has also seen a rally of almost 20% in the past week, taking its price to $0.182. Binance Coin (BNB) has also seen a huge surge in its price recently, even making a new all-time high on its own exchange at over $39.6.

Cryptocurrency trader Michael van de Poppe recently commented that many more projects are catching up with Ethereum and Bitcoin. He said:

“Slowly, but surely, more projects are pacing up with $ETH and $BTC here. $DOT is running significantly in the past days, while $BTC is consolidating here. A new all-time high! That’s why I’ve been allocating towards altcoins already. Q1 2021 will be glorious.”

Which altcoins are to explode in 2021?

The trader further hinted at which cryptocurrencies he thought would do well, which includes Polkadot (DOT). He explained:

“The first cryptocurrencies to do well? That’s going to be large caps. They are the first movers. That’s why we see $DOT, $ADA, $ATOM and $ETH doing well. Focus on them. When they are finished running, the mid-caps and small caps will follow. The money cycle.”

However, the trader also warned against “going all in” on altcoins. He warned, “Another thing I’d highly recommend is to not go all-in on an altcoin. I know you’d be wanting to chase that golden ticket towards financial freedom. However, allocating wisely and compounding your profits year in, year out. That’s your ticket to financial freedom.”

Ethereum (ETH) and Polkadot (DOT) Lead The New Year Crypto Bull Run

The cryptocurrency ecosystem has seen another profitable week with many of the top cryptocurrencies reaping remarkable gains.

The majority of the growth seen was driven by Bitcoin, with more and more institutional investors taking a position with Bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH), and other coins as FOMO (fear of missing out) in the markets have increased.

While Bitcoin’s surge has benefited other cryptocurrencies, the outstanding altcoin gains have been mainly reaped by Ethereum and Polkadot (DOT). This piece highlights each of these cryptocurrencies and the potential future price predictions of each.

Ethereum: Setting The Pace

Ethereum’s percentage growth over the past week has set a new pace and standard that Bitcoin’s proponents may find intimidating. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization grew by 57.96% in the past week according to CoinMarketCap, with a complimentary 29.78% surge in the past 24 hours at the time of writing.

Ethereum has shown strength in its fundamentals as the network for DeFi applications and projects building on it, a factor that continues to increase its network relevance. Ethereum is now trading slightly above $1,000, the highest price in over 2 years.

Ethereum is now poised to surge further as shown in its RSI of about 79.13, indicating a strong bullish momentum in the market. The coin’s short-term Moving Average is extremely bullish as shown in the charts below.

Source: TradingView

Polkadot (DOT) Price Analysis

Polkadot also made a grand entry into the new year with impressive price gains. Arguably, the Polkadot Network’s DOT token stands out as the top gainer percentage-wise, among the top ten tokens with a massive 94.70% rise in the past 7 days.

Polkadot’s growth remains one of the top success stories of 2020 for the cryptocurrency ecosystem as the DeFi coin has not only grown by 90% in the past 30 days, but its growing strides have pushed it to become one of the top ten cryptocurrencies.

Source: TradingView

The technicals are also showing optimistic forecasts for Polkadot (DOT). With an RSI of 60.36 and an Awesome Oscillator (AO) value above the Zero Line, the coin’s potential for more growth in the short-term is promising. With the recent rally, the DOT may cross the $10 resistance in the next couple of days.

More Unusual Moves Seen

The rallies experienced in the course of the week also took a new turn with XRP, the coin that had a bearish Christmas and New Year, due to a dump-off triggered by an SEC Lawsuit filed against Ripple. XRP cryptocurrency appears to be correcting the losses of the past days with a 9.72% gain in the market today, a move that appears to be quite unusual.

Polkadot Becomes Fourth-Largest Crypto by Market Cap, Dethroning Ripple's XRP

XRP’s woes continue, as its recovery on the cryptocurrency market seems unattainable in the near future.

While XRP has been losing in value, other cryptocurrencies have been stamping in their worth. Polkadot has been performing well, surging by about 60% in the past week. Meanwhile, XRP has lost by more than 9% and has once more fallen below the support level of $0.30. At the time of writing, XRP is trading around $0.27.

On Polkadot’s end, with its native DOT token’s price surge, the cryptocurrency has been trading steadily at approximately $17, even touching a high of $18.11 momentarily. Currently, its market capitalization on CoinMarketCap tops $16 billion, while XRP’s market value is estimated at approximately $12 billion.

XRP, which held the title of third-largest cryptocurrency for the longest time, has now dwindled to become the fifth-largest crypto by market cap. Polkadot, on its end, has been excelling. Ahead of DOT, now the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, lies only Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether.

What is Polkadot?

Polkadot has slowly but surely been gaining traction in the cryptocurrency market. It was created by Ethereum co-founder Dr. Gavin James Wood and aims to be an even more evolved version of Ethereum. Polkadot’s features depict parachains, which will make it interoperable with other blockchain networks. With Polkadot, the term “interoperability” was really brought at the forefront of cryptocurrency natives.

Many in the cryptocurrency community have recognized its budding potential, including Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead. The seasoned investor has placed his bet on Polkadot rising to prominence and even outperforming Bitcoin in the years to come. Currently, Polkadot makes up approximately 10% of Ethereum’s total value, and this will surely go up in the long run.

Can Polkadot Maintain the Position of Being the Fourth Largest Crypto in the Long Run?

Amidst the recent boom in the cryptocurrency market is the altcoin boost that has seen many of the alternative currencies to Bitcoin (BTC) chart new price courses for themselves. Blockchain.News reported the latest milestone for one of the crypto success stories for last year, Polkadot (DOT) which recently grew to become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, a feat it pulled by dethroning the embattled XRP coin.

Polkadot was able to rise to this position by showcasing the strength of its fundamentals which has made it highly attractive to crypto HODLers. The coin has had a great run in the past days, surging as much as 224.4% in the past month, 86.5% in the past week and it is also currently in the bull market, with a pump of 1.9% in the past 24 hours according to data from Coingecko. Each DOT is now worth $17.41.

The ascension of Polkadot to the rank of the fourth-largest cryptocurrency comes as the coin’s total market capitalization tops $15.68 billion. 

Polkadot Still Has XRP to Contend With

While Polkadot, the interoperable blockchain network created by Dr. Gavin James Wood has made this current milestone, there is a huge possibility that this ascension may be short-lived. Ripple’s XRP is the long-term occupier of the fourth-largest crypto position, a position it reluctantly accepted after being dethroned by Tether (USDT).

While the ascension of Tether that made it dethrone XRP was based on the stablecoin’s increased adoption which naturally pushed its market cap higher, the push of Polkadot can be attributed to the protracted legal battle between the SEC and Ripple, a case which has continued to hurt the XRP coin. 

In other words, the positioning of DOT in place of XRP may be reversed when the XRP coin is further favored by the bulls. This occurrence has been modeled in the past days as Litecoin also unseated, a position it was unable to sustain. The coming days however will reveal whether Polkadot’s ascension is permanent like that of Tether, or fleeting, as in the case of Litecoin.

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