Transfers of Polkadot’s DOT tokens are now live

Ethereum challenger Polkadot's DOT tokens were unlocked today at block number 1,205,128, allowing for their transfer for the first time.

Announcing the news on Tuesday, Polkadot said the redenomination of DOT, however, will occur on August 21, at block number 1,248,328, at around 16:40 UTC.

With the redenomination, each new DOT token will be 100x smaller than DOT (old). The current denomination is 10**12 Plancks, DOT's smallest unit, and after August 21, DOTs will be denominated as 10**10, moving the decimal two places.

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Crypto exchanges have begun moving to list the token. Kraken has announced that it will support both trading and staking of DOT. The exchange said it would offer 12% annual fixed reward, paid twice per week, for staking DOTs.

Recently, Binance, OKEx and Huobi also announced support for claiming DOT tokens and these exchanges are now likely to extend trading support as well.

The Polkadot project began in 2016, and its mainnet went live in May of this year. Just last month, Polkadot raised $43.3 million in a private token sale. In 2017, the project raised $145 million and last year it sold 500,000 more DOT tokens, without disclosing the dollar figure.

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Yogita Khatri is a senior reporter at The Block, covering all things crypto. As one of the earliest team members, Yogita has played a pivotal role in breaking numerous stories, exclusives and scoops. With nearly 3,000 articles under her belt, Yogita holds the records as The Block's most-published and most-read author of all time. Prior to joining The Block, Yogita worked at crypto publication CoinDesk and The Economic Times, where she wrote on personal finance. To contact her, email: [email protected]. For her latest work, follow her on X @Yogita_Khatri5.