• The second batch of Polkadot’s parachain auction is now underway.
• Twelve projects will be vying for the available slots.
• Polkadot is keeping the process transparent and efficient with candle auctions.

Polkadot is organizing the second set of parachain auctions as the community buzzes with activity. These parachains are considered an integral piece in the puzzle to give the ETH Killer an edge in the ecosystem.

The Second Batch

Last week, the first batch of parachains went live on Polkadot and the network is in search of new projects to occupy available slots. The project created quite the buzz as it had been in development for some time. In a tweet yesterday, the team revealed that the second batch of auctions was live.

“As previously scheduled by Referendum 39, the 2nd batch of parachain auctions has begun! Auctions 6-11 will take place over the next 12 weeks, with a new auction starting every 2 weeks. So far 12 parachains are taking part!”

The twelve parachains involved are Ares Odyssey, Darwinia, Crust, Equilibrium, Litentry, SubGame Gamma, Composable Finance, Efinity, Nodle, Coinversation, Centrifuge,  and Interlay. Community members are keeping their eyes on several projects as the race to victory stiffens.

Efinity is the governing token of Enjin, which allows people to mint, sell, and incorporate their own NFTs. The explosion and interest in this new ecosystem make it one to watch out for in the auction. In addition, it has promised NFTs to its top 250 contributors.

It is important to note that parachains can hold the slots on the Polkadot Parachain for up to 96 weeks with the option to renew upon expiration. Polkadot’s second batch auction began on the 23rd of December and will end on the 30th in a week-long process. The winners will be onboarded in March 2022, with the lease running till the 12th of January 2024.

Candle Auction Innovation

The most innovative thing so far about the Polkadot Parachain project has been the auction process. The various projects bid for the slot through crowd loans designed to give as much power as possible to the Polkadot community so they can vote for their favorite project. Persons interested in the project commit their tokens to be locked on the network for the 96-week parachain lease period if their project wins; in return, they get a wide range of benefits from the network. 

Polkadot created a modified version of the candle auction to protect the process against auction sniping. In a situation where bidders know when the auction will end, they are more likely to wait till the last moment to make a higher bid and “steal” the auction. Finding a way around this, the team utilized the candle auction so an auction could end when a candle is extinguished; as such, the participants have no idea when the auction will end.

The Polkadot Parachain auction has a known start date of yesterday, but the system will randomly select the exact time to stop taking bids after the 25th making bids coming after at risk of being invalid. The winners of the first slots included Acala, Moonbeam, Parallel Finance, Astar, and Clover.