CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 75% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
US English

Polkadot upgrade: Faster transaction speeds, new governance rules boost DOT price

By Raphael Sanis

Edited by Charlie Mellor

09:26, 28 September 2022

Polkadot's logo in front of a price graph
Polkadot could soon have between 100,000 and 1,000,000 transactions a second – Photo: Shutterstock

Polkadot (DOT) has announced an array of upgrades for its users as it enters the last quarter of 2022.

The upgrades on its recent roadmap, announed in a statement, included a complete overhaul of its governance system, a consensus protocol allowing ten times faster transaction speeds and new staking features.

DOT surged after the announcement, but its initial rally is starting to wane.

DOT to USD

Polkadot’s recent success

Since the in-depth update details were revealed by Polkadot, DOT saw bullish sentiment from investors. It rallied from a low of $6.18 on 26 September to a high of $6.79 the following day, an increase of almost 10%.

Polkadot has also recently seen successs in its developer activity. In the past 30 days, Polkadot had the most development activity, beating Ethereum and Cardano, according to Santiment.

However, DOT’s price surge has started to calm with it showing signs of weakness. As of 28 September, it was trading at $6.27, down 6% in the past 24 hours and 9% over the past month, according to CoinMarketCap.

A speedy network

Polkadot’s new updates are set to significantly improve the network. It will be intergrating a consensus protocol titled asynchronous backing. This will reduce the block time for parachains to six seconds. The roadmap statement said: 

“We estimate that this update will bring the TPS [transactions per second] capacity of the network in aggregate to between 100,000 and 1,000,000, without affecting the security guarantees made by the network.”

The consensus protocol is anticipated to launch by the end of this year on the Kusama (KSM) blockchain, a canary network used by Polkadot to test upgrades. Asynchronous backing will then launch on Polkadot’s mainnet, “pending the results of audits and testing”.

ETH/USD

3,253.35 Price
+2.990% 1D Chg, %
Long position overnight fee -0.0616%
Short position overnight fee 0.0137%
Overnight fee time 21:00 (UTC)
Spread 6.00

DOGE/USD

0.14 Price
+8.650% 1D Chg, %
Long position overnight fee -0.0753%
Short position overnight fee 0.0069%
Overnight fee time 21:00 (UTC)
Spread 0.0012872

SOL/USD

184.35 Price
+7.230% 1D Chg, %
Long position overnight fee -0.0753%
Short position overnight fee 0.0069%
Overnight fee time 21:00 (UTC)
Spread 2.2652

XRP/USD

0.60 Price
+0.450% 1D Chg, %
Long position overnight fee -0.0753%
Short position overnight fee 0.0069%
Overnight fee time 21:00 (UTC)
Spread 0.01168

KSM to USD

Governance transformation

Another major improvement that Polkadot revealed in its latest roadmap was a complete overhaul of its governance system.

It explained: “Our novel governance system removes the council and technical committees, introduces the Polkadot Fellowship, and moves every decision in Polkadot to referendums by the community.”

Users can submit and vote in these referundums, which will be enacted through a permissionless mechanism.

Other network improvements

There was also a hefty list of other upgrades in the roadmap.

In addition to governance and network speed improvements, Poldaot said it would implement nomination-based staking pools. These let users create their own staking pools, where others can join and nominate validators.

Polkadot also said it would add a bridge between the mainnet and Kusama, along with a new staking dashboard. Rob Habermeier, Polkadot’s founder, said:

“We’ve been hard at work on delivering the code for these features and upgrades and look forward to having them accepted by the Polkadot community.”

Markets in this article

DOT/USD
Polkadot / USD
5.8846 USD
0.145 +2.550%
KSM/USD
KSM/USD
22.30 USD
1.35 +6.670%

Related topics

Rate this article

Related reading

The difference between trading assets and CFDs
The main difference between CFD trading and trading assets, such as commodities and stocks, is that you don’t own the underlying asset when you trade on a CFD.
You can still benefit if the market moves in your favour, or make a loss if it moves against you. However, with traditional trading you enter a contract to exchange the legal ownership of the individual shares or the commodities for money, and you own this until you sell it again.
CFDs are leveraged products, which means that you only need to deposit a percentage of the full value of the CFD trade in order to open a position. But with traditional trading, you buy the assets for the full amount. In the UK, there is no stamp duty on CFD trading, but there is when you buy stocks, for example.
CFDs attract overnight costs to hold the trades (unless you use 1-1 leverage), which makes them more suited to short-term trading opportunities. Stocks and commodities are more normally bought and held for longer. You might also pay a broker commission or fees when buying and selling assets direct and you’d need somewhere to store them safely.
Capital Com is an execution-only service provider. The material provided in this article is for information purposes only and should not be understood as investment advice. Any opinion that may be provided on this page does not constitute a recommendation by Capital Com or its agents and has not been prepared in accordance with the legal requirements designed to promote investment research independence. While the information in this communication, or on which this communication is based, has been obtained from sources that Capital.com believes to be reliable and accurate, it has not undergone independent verification. No representation or warranty, whether expressed or implied, is made as to the accuracy or completeness of any information obtained from third parties. If you rely on the information on this page, then you do so entirely at your own risk.

Still looking for a broker you can trust?

Join the 630,000+ traders worldwide that chose to trade with Capital.com

1. Create & verify your account 2. Make your first deposit 3. You’re all set. Start trading