Karura Wins First Kusama Parachain Auction With Over 500,000 KSM Locked From Community Supporters
SINGAPORE / ACCESSWIRE / June 22, 2021 / Karura, Acala’s sister network on Polkadot’s canary network Kusama, has successfully completed its crowdloan campaign with over 500,000 KSM (about $100 million) committed, which is more than 5.5% of the KSM circulating supply. With the funds obtained, Karura has won the first-ever parachain slot auction to become the first Kusama-based parachain.
Karura’s lease will last for the maximum allowed period of 11 months for the first parachain slot, thus ending on May 13, 2022. As part of the crowdloan, over 15,000 users will receive KAR tokens at a minimum rate of 12 KAR per 1 KSM. In total, 6,845,464.7 KAR will be distributed to contributors.
The crowdloan mechanism means that contributors still own the locked KSM they provided, and will be able to retrieve it once the Karura lease period ends in May 2022. The only cost borne by contributors is the loss of KSM staking revenue, which should be compensated by the reward in KAR tokens. Crowdloans are an evolution of the parachain auction framework that makes it a community-driven process, where only the most popular and trusted protocols obtain the coveted parachain slot to launch and operate their networks.
The KAR tokens received through the crowdloan will be gradually freed over a period of one year, with only 30% being transferable right away. All tokens are nonetheless eligible for participating in Karura governance or other non-transfer uses.
“Even though the crypto market has been under pressure, we are extremely happy with the results of our crowdloan, which allowed us to become the first ever parachain in the Kusama and Polkadot space,” said Bette Chan, Co-Founder of Acala and Karura. “Collecting over 5% of KSM supply is no small feat, and we are honored to have such a strong community of DeFi supporters.”
Karura has begun producing blocks and has completed its genesis phase, with a progressive decentralization of its governance and additional features to follow. Karura is set to offer a complete EVM-enabled DeFi environment on Kusama, with native integrations of DeFi primitives like collateralized stablecoins and lending, automated market maker DEXs, and liquid KSM staking. Karura is the wilder sister network of the upcoming Polkadot-native Acala network, allowing for bolder Defi strategies, more risk-taking and faster iterations through forkless upgrades. Just like Acala, it offers liquidity bridges from other chains like Bitcoin and Ethereum, a micro-fee environment that allows paying with any token, as well as a highly scalable Ethereum-compatible environment for Solidity dApps.
“Though a successful crowdloan sets the stage for later, the most exciting and complex part of our journey begins now: launching the network, rolling out a successful governance framework, launching our DeFi products and attracting users and liquidity,” added Chen.
About Karura
Karura is the all-in-one DeFi hub of Kusama. Founded by the Acala Foundation, Karura is a scalable, EVM-compatible network optimized for DeFi. The platform offers a suite of financial applications including: a trustless staking derivative (liquid KSM), a multi-collateralized stablecoin backed by cross-chain assets (kUSD), and an AMM DEX - all with micro gas fees that can be paid in any token. Karura is a blockchain platform custom-built for DeFi and powered by KAR, which enables settlement for transactions and smart contract execution, incentivizes node operators, and empowers its holders to participate in governance.
Acala and Karura were founded in Oct 2019, have received several Web3 Foundation grants, have backing from Coinbase Ventures, Pantera Capital, Polychain Capital, Digital Currency Group, Arrington XRP Capital, ParaFi, and other top firms, and have a distributed team in New Zealand, China, Europe, Brazil, and the United States.
Contact:
Dan Edelstein
PR@marketacross.com
SOURCE: Acala
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