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Polkadot

Polkadot overview for newcomers

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Polkadot overview for newcomers

August 18th, 2020 - Polkadot almost became a fully-operational network by reaching the 4th of five milestones - opening transfers between accounts. The network is expected to finish the rollout plan this autumn by enabling parachain auctions and cross-chain interaction protocol, but, which might be important for newcomers, now you can legally buy and sell DOT tokens. If you are someone who missed the original 2017 and small 2020 sale but still are interested - this article is for you.

Which wallets to use?

We recommend starting exploring Polkadot with official Polkadot.js browser wallet (you would also need to install polkadot.js browser plugin). This is the official wallet supported by Web3 Foundation that provides all possible opportunities for DOT users. If you are not a fan of desktop wallets, you can just walk through all tabs and get a good overview of Polkadot. The full list of supported wallets can be found here.

You will notice that a lot of them are in the development stage, but the following ones are fully functional:

Please note that the wallets may not provide full functionality (e.g., Democracy, Council voting, Extrinsic, etc.) - but all of them support transfers and staking.

Where to buy DOT?

Generally, we don’t give advice on the exchange as your experience may differ based on the country of your residence or KYC/AML procedures. As you’re reading this page, we believe you are already a crypto person and you don’t need common advice like picking a trusted exchange. But there’s one thing you may not be familiar with:

On August 21st, Polkadot will go through the redenomination process. It means the “old” DOT will be equal to 100 “new” DOTs. This was the choice of community - you can read more in the official post. This change will not be done by changing any core code - from 21st 1 DOT will be equal to 10^10 Plancks (the smallest fraction of DOT), while now it’s 10^12 Plancks. If you buy your DOT now, you will just see 100x more DOT on your balance after 21st.

How to create an account?

Please use our guide. The whole process will take several minutes.

How to nominate?

We have a general guide on nominating. Here are some additional tips that you might find helpful:

For those of you who have more than 50000 DOT we have a special offer!

How do rewards work?

At the moment, Polkadot provides around 14-15% APR on your stake. The following things might influence your profit:

Please use our article with nomination strategies that are based on the stake you hold

Other important points on the rewards:

What is slashing and how does it work?

Slashing is a penalty mechanism that provides economic incentives for validators to play fair and nominators to choose the right validators. Slashing is triggered when a validator makes a double sign or more than 10% of the network goes offline. This can also happen because of a software bug. In such cases, the slashes are applied after 28 days and can be canceled by democracy voting.

As the slashing is applied to both validator and its nominators, you may lose some portion of your stake. To minimize risks to be slashed:

What resources to use or follow?

For all newcomers to Polkadot ecosystem, we recommend the following resources:

About P2P Validator

P2P Validator is a world-leading non-custodial staking provider with the best industry practices and proven expertise. We provide comprehensive due-diligence of digital assets and offer only high-class staking opportunities securing more than 3 billion of USD value. At the time of the latest update, P2P Validator is trusted by over 10,000 delegators across 25+ networks.


Do not hesitate to ask questions in our Telegram chat or contact Gleb via [email protected]. We are always ready to help and open for communication.


Web: https://p2p.org

Stake DOT with us: https://p2p.org/polkadot

Twitter: @p2pvalidator

Telegram: https://t.me/P2Pstaking

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