Polkadot
Polkadot is a public network designed to connect multiple independent, specialized blockchains, called parachains, into one interoperable system.
Last reviewed 2026-11-04Source
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DOT
Polkadot
$0.8875
$0.0308 (-3.35% · 24h)
Updated 8:56 PM UTC
Polkadot price history
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Market stats
Market cap
$1.52B
Fully diluted valuation
$1.52B
Projects market cap as if max supply were already circulating today — a reference point, not a forecast.
24h volume
$50.21M
Circulating supply
1,711,040,017 DOT
Total supply
1,711,040,017 DOT
Max supply
2,100,000,000 DOT
Market cap rank
#57
All-time high
$54.98
-98.39% below current price · Nov 4, 2021 UTC
All-time low
$0.727
22.08% above current price · Aug 18, 2026 UTC
What moved the price?
Polkadot has fallen 3.4% over the last 24 hours, within Kaavon's documented range for ordinary day-to-day volatility.
Over the last 7 days, Polkadot has fallen 5.9%, within Kaavon's documented range for ordinary week-over-week volatility.
No specific, sourced news event has been identified for Polkadot's price movement.
About this data
Prices and market data are Powered by CoinGecko, aggregated across the exchanges CoinGecko tracks — not the execution price of any single exchange. Kaavon attempts to refresh this data every 10 minutes; last refreshed 8:56 PM UTC.
Market cap uses circulating supply; fully diluted valuation (FDV) projects the market cap as if the maximum supply were already in circulation today — it is a valuation reference point, not a prediction of future market cap.
Project Overview
Polkadot is a public network, launched in 2020 and designed by the Web3 Foundation and Parity Technologies, built around connecting multiple independent, purpose-built blockchains, called parachains, so they can share security and communicate with one another rather than each bootstrapping its own independent validator set.
Technology & Architecture
Polkadot's central chain, called the relay chain, coordinates consensus and security for the network. Individual parachains connect to the relay chain, each able to have its own specialized design, while benefiting from shared security coordinated at the relay chain level. Polkadot's design includes Cross-Consensus Messaging (XCM), letting parachains pass messages and assets to one another so specialized chains can interoperate directly rather than existing as entirely isolated networks.
Access to relay-chain block space, once allocated through parachain slot auctions, now runs through Agile Coretime, a market-based mechanism (fully deployed in the Polkadot SDK 2509 upgrade, October 2025) that lets parachains buy block-production capacity more flexibly than the older fixed-term-lease auction model. The project's next major architectural change, JAM (Join-Accumulate Machine), proposed by Gavin Wood in a 2024 graypaper, would replace the relay chain's current design with a more general-purpose, stateless execution model. As of mid-2026, secondary sources disagreed on JAM's mainnet timing -- estimates ranged from a slipped Q1 2026 target to a Q3-Q4 2026 governance-approval window -- so it is reported here as an active, unresolved roadmap item rather than a shipped feature.
Polkadot's parachains share security through the relay chain -- a different multi-chain model from Cosmos's independently-secured, IBC-connected chains or Avalanche's variable-security subnets.
Shared security has historically come with a real capital cost
Securing a parachain slot has historically required projects to lock up significant amounts of DOT for an extended period -- a genuine capital-lockup consideration distinct from simply staking DOT, and a real cost of getting a project connected to the relay chain's shared security. Agile Coretime has begun to loosen that requirement for new entrants, but existing long-term lease commitments were made under the older model.
Token Utility & Economics
DOT is Polkadot's native asset, used for staking under the network's nominated proof-of-stake system, for governance participation (voting power is generally weighted by the amount of DOT a voter conviction-locks), and historically for parachain slot auctions within the ecosystem. DOT is also the asset used to purchase coretime under the Agile Coretime model.
Governance
Polkadot uses a proof-of-stake variant called nominated proof of stake, in which DOT holders nominate trusted validators, who are then selected to secure the relay chain and, by extension, connected parachains. Separately, Polkadot's OpenGov system lets DOT holders propose and vote on binding referenda across multiple parallel tracks, funded in part by the on-chain treasury. Parity's own OpenGov review (covering mid-2023 to September 2024) reported over 1,200 referenda since launch and roughly $121 million in treasury assets at that time.
Treat specific 2026 treasury and referendum figures as unverified unless checked live
Secondary blogs reported a range of 2026 treasury figures -- including a claimed first profitable quarter and specific dollar totals -- that this research pass could not confirm against an official Polkadot treasury report. A late-January 2026 forum digest separately noted that several concurrently open referenda were all failing at that snapshot in time, illustrating that governance outcomes shift quickly; any current figure should be checked against a live source such as the Polkadot forum's own treasury reports or an on-chain governance dashboard, not a dated secondary summary.
Ecosystem & Adoption
Polkadot's ecosystem consists of independently built parachains, each with its own applications and design choices, connected through the shared relay chain rather than existing as a single monolithic network. Polkassembly, one of the ecosystem's major OpenGov interfaces, moved to a read-only archive mode through May 31, 2026, with its domains redirecting to the Polkadot Developer Docs afterward -- a notable consolidation of governance tooling worth knowing if following older links to that interface.
Competitive Landscape
Polkadot's shared-security, relay-chain-plus-parachain model is most directly comparable to two other multi-chain designs with different trust assumptions: Cosmos, where each chain is independently secured and connects to others via the IBC protocol rather than sharing a common validator set, and Avalanche, where subnets can each set their own validator requirements rather than inheriting shared security from a central chain. Polkadot's trade-off is the capital cost of shared security (historically, parachain slot bonding) against Cosmos's and Avalanche's trade-off of each chain bearing its own, potentially smaller, independent security budget.
Security & Decentralization
Validators on the relay chain are selected and weighted through nominated proof of stake, with nominators backing the validators they trust; shared security means an adequately staked relay chain extends its security guarantees to every connected parachain, rather than each parachain needing to separately bootstrap a comparably sized validator set. This research pass did not identify a current, independently verified Nakamoto-coefficient or validator-concentration figure specific to Polkadot's relay chain -- disclosed as a gap rather than an assumed clean record.
Risks & Dependencies
- Securing a parachain slot under the legacy lease model has historically required projects to lock up significant amounts of DOT for an extended period, a real capital-lockup consideration distinct from simple staking (Agile Coretime is intended to reduce, but has not eliminated, this for all parachains).
- The relay chain and parachain architecture is more complex than a single-chain design, which can introduce coordination risks not present on simpler networks.
- JAM is a major, not-yet-mainnet architectural change; its design, timeline, and governance-approval path all remain unresolved as of this research pass, and secondary sources disagree on specifics (even descriptions of the underlying virtual machine design vary between sources).
- OpenGov treasury health and referendum participation trends reported in secondary sources are inconsistent and some appear to be unverified projections rather than confirmed results.
- Polkadot competes with other interoperability-focused and sharded network architectures pursuing similar goals through different designs.
Relevant Metrics
- Launch year: 2020. Consensus: Nominated Proof of Stake (relay chain).
- Governance: OpenGov, multi-track on-chain referenda with treasury funding.
- Treasury (per Parity's own review, covering mid-2023 to Sept 2024): ~$121 million in assets, 1,200+ referenda processed.
- Block-space allocation: Agile Coretime (deployed October 2025), replacing fixed-term parachain slot auctions.
- Pending architectural change: JAM (Join-Accumulate Machine) -- mainnet timing unresolved as of this research pass.
References
- Primary: Polkadot Developer Docs, "On-Chain Governance" (docs.polkadot.com/reference/governance) — OpenGov structure.
- Primary: Parity Technologies' OpenGov Report (data.parity.io/opengov_report.pdf) — referenda count and treasury-asset figures through September 2024.
- Secondary (explicitly unverified figures flagged in-article): assorted 2026 crypto-news and blog coverage of treasury spend, JAM timing, and Agile Coretime (Polkadot forum digests, DEV Community, blockeden.xyz, decrypt.co) — used only where multiple sources converged or the claim was clearly labeled as a projection.
Key facts
Symbol
DOT
Launch
2020
Category
Layer 1
Consensus
Nominated Proof of Stake
Network type
Public, permissionless multi-chain network
How this profile is maintained
Manually maintained research profile. Governance structure draws on Polkadot's own developer documentation and Parity's OpenGov review; specific 2026 treasury-balance and referendum-outcome figures circulating in secondary blogs could not be independently confirmed this pass and are flagged as such rather than stated as fact. JAM upgrade status is reported with the explicit caveat that secondary sources disagree on its mainnet timing. No live market-price data is used.
- Last reviewed:
- 2026-11-04