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Polkadot Raises $43M in 72-Hour Private Sale: Source

A second private sale of the Polkadot token (DOT) has netted some 3,982.07 BTC worth an estimated $43.3 million as of press time, according to sources.

(BitInfoCharts Block Explorer/CoinDesk Research)
(BitInfoCharts Block Explorer/CoinDesk Research)

A second private sale of the Polkadot token (DOT) netted the Web3 Foundation and Parity Technologies some 3,982.07 bitcoin (BTC) worth an estimated $43.3 million at press time, according to sources.

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A bitcoin address shared with CoinDesk saw 1,059 transactions beginning July 24 at 5:22 UTC.

The token offering was not available in certain jurisdictions such as the United States, according to the sale’s website. Dots were listed for $125 per token, according to Reddit users claiming to be involved in the sale. The Web3 Foundation did not return requests for comment.

Additionally, the Polkadot community voted to redenominate the smallest subunit of the DOT token, the Planck, this past weekend for a “simpler, smoother user experience when using DOTs within the network,” the Web3 Foundation said in a tweet.

“The community vastly favours a New DOT denomination which is defined as 10,000,000,000 Planck or, put alternatively, a ‘stock-split’ of the original, old DOT by one hundred,” Polkadot and Parity Technologies founder Gavin Wood said in a July 26 blog post.

Read more: Polkadot’s Inaugural Vote Could Expand DOT Supply by 1,000x

Polkadot raised $145 million in 2017, selling 50% of the network’s then 10 million dots, according to Messari. (The number of dot tokens has since risen, following the redenomination vote.)

Polkadot’s raise comes on the heels of last week’s $42 million public sale of the Avalanche blockchain’s avax token.

Zack Voell contributed reporting.

William Foxley

Will Foxley is the host of The Mining Pod and publisher at Blockspace Media. A former co-host of CoinDesk's The Hash, Will was the director of content at Compass Mining and a tech reporter at CoinDesk.

William Foxley