Polkadot DOT
Rank #50 by market cap
Last 7 days
CM Profile: Polkadot
Cryptominium Profile. What we have established, measured and written about DOT, and what we have not.
- Measured
- Selling $100,000 on 2 exchange order books lost between 0.23% and 0.40%, on 9 October 2026.
- Its price, recorded by us every day since 9 August 2026.
- Written, with sources
Read from our own records when this page was made. It describes what we know, and is not a view on whether to hold DOT. How each part is worked out
What changed
Week to 9 OctoberNothing we measure moved much this week: trading volume, reported supply and price are all within their usual range.
From our own measurements only, each against the month before. We do not say why a price moves. How this is worked out · Every coin this week
What it actually costs to sell DOT
Selling $100,000 of DOT into each exchange’s resting bids, measured against the mid price:
| Exchange | Lost | Got back | Measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coinbase DOT/USD | 0.23% | $99,768 | 2026-10-09 |
| Kraken DOT/USD | 0.40% | $99,604 | 2026-10-09 |
Exchange figures need an account there (and KYC, a permitted country, the tokens already deposited), are before trading fees, and are never averaged with the on-chain figure. Binance is not included: it refuses requests from the region our servers are in. How this is measured →
Watch this number instead of remembering it. A free account keeps DOT on a list, records where it stood the day you added it, and emails you if selling it on these exchanges gets materially harder — one message, not a series. The measurement itself stays public; the account is for being told when it moves without you looking.
What Polkadot is
Polkadot launched in 2020 and was founded by Gavin Wood, a co-founder of Ethereum who wrote its original technical specification. Its premise is that there will not be one winning blockchain, so the useful thing to build is a way for many purpose-built chains to run in parallel and talk to each other.
A central relay chain provides shared security, and individual chains connect to it rather than each defending themselves. Because they inherit that security, a new chain does not need to bootstrap its own validator set — historically these slots were won by locking up DOT in auctions, later replaced by a more flexible market for blockspace.
The honest reading is that the engineering is serious and the adoption has lagged it. Connected chains have generally not attracted the users the model anticipated, and the ecosystem remains smaller than the design assumed. DOT is inflationary by construction, and its issuance schedule has itself been changed by governance vote — which is either a feature or a warning, depending on how you feel about an asset whose monetary policy is subject to a ballot. The system is also genuinely complex, and that complexity has been a real barrier to developers.
What Polkadot can do
Selling $100,000 on Coinbase lost 0.23% against the mid price, before trading fees. Check your own amount →
Our own measurement · measured 9 October 2026
DOT sits at an address controlled by a key. An account has to keep a small minimum, currently 0.01 DOT: if its balance falls below that, the account is wiped from the chain along with whatever was left in it. Fees alone cannot take it below the line. What a wallet actually is →
Sources: Polkadot wiki: accounts, Polkadot wiki: chain state values · checked 2 October 2026
DOT can be staked by locking it and nominating validators, or from 1 DOT through a nomination pool. Taking it back out takes 28 days, and if a validator misbehaves, part or all of the stake behind it can be confiscated.
Sources: Polkadot wiki: staking, Polkadot wiki: chain state values · checked 2 October 2026
The supply is capped at 2.1 billion DOT, a limit set by a vote of DOT holders. New DOT is issued each year, and the amount steps down every two years.
Source: Polkadot wiki: inflation · checked 2 October 2026
What a coin can do is not a reason to buy it or to sell it. Each answer names its source and the day we read it; where we could not source one, the row is left out. How these are written · Every coin we have written up
About the asset
Polkadot has no token contract — it is the native asset of its own chain, not a token issued on someone else's.
Price change
Polkadot data synced 3m ago from CoinGecko. Figures shown in USD. This page is market information, not financial advice — and nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell DOT.