The crypto market is young and unpredictable. Many times it was declared dead. We knew what coins were the champs and for months if not years the list of leaders was quite the same. Nevertheless, the market of cryptocurrencies is alive and amazingly active. The years of relative calm were used by professionals to coin new digital assets, some of which are blowing charts nowadays.
One of these coins was released to the market in September of 2020 and suddenly became one of the top 5 cryptocurrencies by market cap in a few months! The sensation coins' name is Polkadot (DOT). In this article, we will look at the main features of the Polkadot project, review the price trajectory DOT had in the past, and predict the future Polkadot prices until 2030.
What Is Polkadot?
Polkadot is yet another "Ethereum killer". Throughout the years, we've seen many ambitious projects that were promoted this way, however, none of them was as successful as Polkadot. This project is an open-source protocol uniting different blockchains into a scalable network. Polkadot protocol is capable of providing a failure-safe Internet connection and protecting the interests of customers. Such a connection is usually referred to as Web 3.0. Web 3.0 is all about giving users full control over their personal data and preventing corporations from unwanted access to your data. By the way, the company developing Polkadot is called Web3 Foundation. Polkadot is a layer-0 solution working with layer-1 blockchains providing an ecosystem for interchain connections.
Polkadot is a complex and nuanced project with many elements that interact in a powerful, virtuous cycle. For a long time I have wanted to share our reasons for being excited by this project. After many years of wanting to share, here it is:https://t.co/Wrh3VQ4iOa @TerryDRossi
— ken seiff (@seiff) June 9, 2021
Yes, Polkadot has something to do with Ethereum - a whitepaper called Polkadot Paper was written by Dr. Gavin Wood, who was an Ethereum CTO at some point. What's more important, Wood is the creator of Solidity, a programming language used on Ethereum. He wasn't the only person from the Ethereum team responsible for the creation of Polkadot. Other founders of Polkadot are Robert Habermeier and Peter Czaban.
In May 2020, 4 years after the release of Polkadot Paper, the network went live. Polkadot uses the nominated-proof-of-stake consensus algorithm as a means of protection of the ecosystem and validation of transactions. A native Polkadot token known as DOT is used for staking. Validators stake coins in order to participate in the ecosystem activity and receive staking rewards in return. Some validators are supported by nominators who stake their DOT tokens on their behalf. This activity is rewarded, too.
Polkadot is a sharded platform. It processes transactions on several parallel chains (“parachains”) simultaneously. Thanks to it, transaction speed has a great potential for increasing and the companies using Polkadot have a bigger room for scale growth. It is considered that the capacity of Polkadot can reach one million transactions per second. The solutions powered by Polkadot are expected to be capable of hosting the entire countries' economies. Layer-1 blockchains can be designed within the Polkadot ecosystem. Unlike most cryptocurrencies, DOT is inflationary.
Past Market Performance
Polkadot ICO was held back in 2017 via the Ethereum blockchain. As a result of the campaign, over $144 million were raised. Due to security issues, some of the raised funds were affected and the platform launch was delayed. Despite a troubled start, Polkadot turned out to be one of the highest gainers of the crypto rally of the first half of 2020. The token can be easily found on most of the top exchanges including HitBTC, Binance, Kraken, OKEx, etc.
When DOT finally hit the market, its starting price was $2.87. It was the lowest price this token ever had. Soon after the emergence of the Polkadot token on the market, the price began to grow significantly. It was the end of summer 2020, the time when the crypto market began to warm before the most powerful rise it had in over ten years.
By August 22, the price had already crossed the $4 mark and gained over two USD more in the following days. Until December 28 the price was fluctuating between $4 and $5 without any serious spikes. As more developers were starting to use the Polkadot blockchain, the price was going up. At some point, the coin became a favorite among traders and cryptocurrency professionals. Many people were saying that DOT is going to be as big as Ethereum. In early 2021, Polkadot became one of the most traded coins. Before this, on December 28, 2020, the price started to rise quickly.
In mid-January 2021 the price hit an $18 value. However, soon it declined a bit to around $16.5. The growth continued in February together with the rest of the crypto market. That month, the price has reached a maximum of nearly $40 which is impressive if we remember that only a couple of months ago it was only $5. For the entire March, the price was well below $40 declining to $29 at the lowest point. The situation has changed in April. On April 6 the DOT price was as high as $45. The ups and downs have followed. Finally, the highest price was reached on May 15 and it was over $47. DOT dipped a couple of times — together with the rest of the market, not because of Polkadot's own flaws. Unlike most crypto coins out there, in November of 2021, Polkadot has updated its all-time high price. In the beginning of 2022, the entire crypto market was in decline and DOT wasn't that special. However, Polkadot hasn't lost its momentum or something like this. This coin ranks 9th by market capitalization (as of February 2, 2022) which means that it is one of the most successful coins with a bright future. It’s understood that the price of Polkadot will keep on increasing as the project will keep on developing and cryptocurrencies will become more and more popular.
Price Prediction
As the project keeps on developing and attracting new investors, the DOT price will keep on growing. Moreover, the reputation of cryptocurrencies per se is getting stronger, too. In December 2022 we will probably see the price reaching a $33 level.
Another taking-off for the DOT price is expected in 2023. Many big business giants will have partnerships with crypto projects by this time. Polkadot might become one of the focus projects for many. The price will definitely pass the $50 mark by the end of 2023. With a huge probability, it can reach up to $54. However, the following year it can touch the $70 level at best.
It is hard to predict the trajectory of the several years from now. We know too little to predict the entire crypto market situation and if Polkadot will keep its leading positions or will step back because of the newer successful projects. In the case of success, the price might pass $100 by the end of 2025. If the growth will decline, it can stick at the $85 - $88 range.
It's even harder to make a sane forecast for 2030. We expect that the US dollar will have a lesser significance by that time. So powerful crypto such as DOT can cost over $700 per coin or even reach one thousand. However, the crypto market is highly competitive. The DOT rivals can make this coin cheap so its price would be well below $800.