Auctions on Polkadot & Kusama Ecosystem

Parachain auctions are auctions that are held on the Polkadot (or Kusama - network built as fast-moving 'canary in the coal mine' for its cousin Polkadot) relay chain to determine which blockchain will connect to the parachain slot. Once auction begins, then every project on the network is free to submit their bid to the relay chain.

Parachains are sold in an unpermissioned candle auction — a method used to auction ships in the 16th century where the winner was the highest bidder when the flame went out — which terminate after a random amount of time determined by the system. Auctions for both Polkadot and Kusama function similarly, and teams bid using two pieces of information — their bid amount and slot duration. Project teams bid using DOT (or KSM for Kusama).

Crowdloan allows a team to crowdsource DOT (for Polkadot slots) or KSM (for Kusama slots) to use to bootstrap its parachain auction. So Сrowdloan allows people to contribute by agreeing to lock up their own DOT (KSM) until the end of the lease. Teams can reward their contributors however they see fit, and can structure their crowdloan in various ways, hosting it either natively on Polkadot (Kusama) or on a 3rd-party platform.

When crowdloans start you'll see JOIN NOW button in the crowdloan table below. This button will lead to polkadot.js.org or to parachain project website where you may get additional bonuses from a project team for your crowdloan contribution. Both ways use Polkadot’s native crowdloan mechanism. This ensures that your DOT/KSM will be received back to you automatically.

The minimum Polkadot Crowdloan contribution is 5 DOT (0.1 KSM on Kusama).

1. If a project win an auction then you will get your DOT/KSM back after leasing period (96 weeks on Polkadot and 48 weeks on Kusama).
2. If a project does not take parachain slot you will get your DOT/KSM back in a few days after auctions end (current batch).

DOT/KSM back to your wallet automatically. No action on your part is required.

A community driven curated list of potentially less-than-honest operators: https://polkadot.js.org/phishing/