Polkadex Crowdloan Meets Batch 3 of the Polkadot Parachain Auctions With a New Plan

Did someone say new rewards ratio?

4 min readMar 9, 2022

Batch 2 of the Polkadot parachain auctions is about to come to a close and despite the overwhelming amount of support from the community, Polkadex was not able to win a slot this time around. However, the goal of securing a parachain remains of utmost importance to the future of Polkadex and, as we’ve said countless times, we will continue to go for a slot until we get one.

In other words, we are going for batch 3! That’s not all, Polkadexers will be pleased to know we are revisiting the Crowdloan rewards structure in order to further incentivize community contributions. We’ve prepared this article to give you a low-down on what is set to change as we go for a parachain slot in batch 3.

Polkadex Crowdloan Batch 2 Recap

Before we get into the exciting batch 3 updates, we want to take a moment to acknowledge and give thanks for all the support Polkadex received in batch 2. Together, we were able to raise over 132,300 DOT, or over 2.2 million USD, in 1,175 contributions from 488 individual contributors. Thank you to all those who have contributed to the Polkadex Crowdloan in batch 2. Polkadex could not have made it this far without you.

Since Polkadex did not win a slot, all Polkadex Crowdloan contributors should be getting their DOT back automatically after the last auction officially ends (around 2pm UTC on March 10th). Essentially, that means you will need to contribute your DOT to the Polkadex Crowdloan once again. However, we get the feeling you are going to love the rewards structure for batch 3…

Batch 3 Details

First things first, the Parity team has made some notable changes to future batches. Starting with batch 3, there will be seven auction slots per batch. The winners of the first two auctions (March 12th to March 19th and March 24th to March 31st) will get a parachain immediately after their auction ends and join the previous lease period starting March 11th (thus getting a slightly shorter lease period). The winners of the last five auctions will get a parachain for a full lease period set to start after the end of batch 3 (May 30th).

In order to maximize the length of the future Polkadex parachain’s lease period and to better align the launch of the Polkadex parachain with the launch of Polkadex’s products, the Polkadex team has opted for the Batch 3 Polkadex Crowdloan to go live in early April.

Changes to the Polkadex Crowdloan

Rewards

We’re significantly lowering the auction cap, which means the minimum rewards ratio will be much higher than it was for batch 2. In other words: way more PDEX rewards for every DOT you contribute! Stay tuned for the exact rewards ratio to be announced soon.

Structural changes

In addition to the auction cap and rewards changes, we’re also making changes to the way the Polkadex parachain will fit into the project as a whole. In batch 2, Polkadex was the first ever seedling parachain. That meant that if Polkadex won a slot, the Polkadex network would have been migrated into the Polkadex parachain. However, we realized that making the Polkadex network itself a parachain could hinder some of the cutting-edge solutions that will soon be launched on top of it. Therefore, the Polkadex team has decided it’s best for the project as a whole to keep the Polkadex network and the Polkadex parachain as two separate networks connected by a substrate to substrate bridge.

Two Chains

Not only will both networks be connected by a bridge, they will also share the same PDEX token. The two-network set-up is great news for Polkadex validators as they will continue to earn rewards for securing the network and will also get an opportunity to become collators of the Polkadex parachain on top. Collators will also have a similar reward scheme as the current Mainnet staking one. More details will be released after Polkadex secures the parachain slot. Having two connected networks sharing PDEX will have no impact on the total rate of inflation.

Because of this development, Polkadex will have a new paraID going into batch 3. We will work with all current and future partners to ensure they are all fully supporting contributions to the newest paraID before we officially launch the new Crowdloan.

New Crowdloan, renewed excitement

We’re excited about the exponential rewards ratio increase and can’t wait for the new Crowdloan to go live in early April so the Polkadex community can get even more rewards for helping Polkadex cross the finish line. While we’ve made some changes to the overall structure of the Crowdloan and the future Polkadex parachain, our commitment to securing a slot remains untouched. We’re grateful for all the support and lessons learned so far. We’re feeling more confident in the future of Polkadex than ever before.

Let’s get it done this time Polkadexers! Whether its the re-launch of the Crowdloan or the upcoming launches of PolkaIDO and Polkadex Orderbook, there’s a lot going on at Polkadex… You’ll want to stay tuned to the channels below!