So far, Polkadot has been in the crypto space for only three years but has already established a roadmap gaining a lot of popularity in the crypto space. This open-source project has a native token DOT, currently ranking 6th in CoinMarketCap with a total circulating supply of 895,029,159 DOT coins.
What is Polkadot?
Polkadot is an open-source sharding protocol with the goal of facilitating the cross-chain transfer of data across various blockchain networks. Polkadot was designed as part of a wide vision for a web that gives individuals control over internet monopolies.
It aims to disrupt data ownership by achieving interoperability to establish a decentralized web and giving the power back to users. Polkadot is one of the leading blockchain projects aiming to grow the crypto ecosystem by connecting independent blockchain networks through its Polkadot relay chain. Thus allowing public and private chains, oracles, permissionless networks, etc to share information across chains in a trustless manner.
Polkadot History
Gavin Wood, the co-founder of initial CTO and co-founder of Ethereum project is the brain behind Polkadot. Gavin is also the author of Ethereum formal specification. He created and programmed Ethereum’s first functional implementation. However, he bid farewell to the Ethereum community in January 2016 in order to face a new venture that will meet up with his vision which according to him, Ethereum could not meet.
According to Gavin, he had the original idea of Polkadot in the summer of 2016 when he was waiting for the Ethereum 2.0 sharding specs to solidify enough and reach the implementation phase. Through the help of another developer, Marek Kotewicz, Gavin was able to design a sharded version of Ethereum and finished the first draft of the Polkadot white paper the same year.
Polkadot launched its initial coin offering (ICO) on October 15, 2017, in its Dutch Auction event. However, the ICO ended on October 27, 2017, and saw a total of 485,331 ETH raised. Shortly after in November same year, it became known that a parity hack led to the destroying of a two-third of the ethers ingested by exploiting a code error.
So far, Polkadot has been making a lot of progress. In 2018, Polkadot achieved various milestones including the development of Proof of Concept (PoC), the first successful governance-based protocol upgrades from PoC -1 to PoC -2, and the unveiling of the BBQ Birch testnet which shows the capability to build and deploy a web assembly smart contracts chain with a substrate.
Furthermore, in the first quarter of 2019, Polkadot announced that it was in near completion of its PoC – 3 milestone and the unveiling of its Alexander testnet.
How to Buy Polkadot
Buying a Polkadot will give you the ability to vote on upgrades to the Polkadot network with each vote being proportional to the quantity of DOT staked.
Users are also allowed to send their tokens to stakers, allocating votes to other users in order to earn a certain percentage of the new DOT minted by the protocol.
To buy a Polkadot, follow the steps below;
Step 1: Choose your DOT wallet
A wallet is a place where you can store, receive, or transfer your DOT coins. Most wallets allow you to stake cryptocurrency or even vote for the governance. There are many wallets that you can use to store your DOT coin. There are mobile, web, desktop, and hardware wallets available for different platforms. You can use any of the following wallets to store your DOT token;
Parity Signer: It is an open-source mobile wallet and available for both Android and iOS. It is a wallet built for use offline.
Polkawallet: This is a multi-wallet for Polkadot and many other digital assets. It is a wallet with loads of features such as; allowing users to view locked, reserved, bonded assets and allows for the transfer of any of them to any account through QR – code.
There are still other wallets you can choose from such as Mathwallet, Lunie wallet, Trust wallet, Ownbit wallet, etc.
Step 2: Choose your DOT Exchange
It is the second step to getting your DOT token. There are a lot of exchanges where you can buy or sell your DOT token. A few of the popular exchanges where you can buy or sell your DOT token include; Binance, Kraken, Kucoin, ZBG.
In this article, we are going to use Binance. So,
- Head over to Binance and create your account.
- Login to your email and confirm your email address.
- Go back to Binance and log in.
Step 3: Take precautionary measures
When buying DOT coins in Binance, it is imperative to take precautionary measures to make sure that you don’t buy the wrong coin or fall into scammers or hackers.
In order to safeguard your account;
- Use a strong password combination for your account creation.
- Set up all the security authentication setups in Binance.
- Avoid sharing your login details with a third party.
- Add all other available security layers that the Binance exchange offers.
Step 4: Choose the Payment Method
Once you have signed in to your Binance account, navigate to the payment setting, and choose your preferred payment method which you would use to pay for your DOT token.
Since you will be using your credit/debit card for the purchase, there are few other security verifications (KYC) that you will need to complete. You will need to verify your national identity card such as Social Security Number, Driving License, etc.
It is the phone number or Authenticator apps that Binance uses to set up Two Factor Authentication (2FA) on your account to secure your account.
After that, you can set up your funding source. (that is the way you want to purchase Polkadot token). You can use your bank account or credit card for the purchase.
However, you can also use your BTC, ETH or USDT to purchase the Polkadot token. But I will advise you to use the bank option as it will give you the opportunity of having access to your coin instantly after purchase.
Step 5: Make the purchase and store DOT in your wallet
Once you have set up your payment method, it is time for you to make your purchase. Binance will update your account with your DOT token within minutes after purchase.