Blockchain project Polkadot raises $43 million in a private token sale
Blockchain project Polkadot, a challenger to Ethereum, has raised $43.3 million in a private token sale.
The sale, which lasted for three days from July 24 to July 27, saw participation from several investors. They all contributed nearly 3,982 bitcoins via 1,059 transactions, according to an address associated with Polkadot.
Through the sale, investors grabbed Polkadot's native DOT tokens, which were reportedly available for $125 apiece. Residents of the U.S., Japan and some other countries were restricted from participating in the sale.
The Polkadot project is led by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood via his firm Parity Technologies and non-profit the Web3 Foundation. Wood did not respond to The Block's request for comment on the token sale.
The $43 million sale comes in addition to Polkadot's two previous token sales. In 2017, the project raised $145 million and last year it sold 500,000 more DOT tokens, without disclosing the dollar figure.
The Polkadot project was kickstarted in 2016, and its mainnet went live in May of this year. Polkadot claims to fix Ethereum's scalability and interoperability issues.
Another similar blockchain project, Avalanche, spearheaded by Cornell computer science professor Emin Gün Sirer, raised $42 million in a public token sale this month. Avalanche claims to outclass Ethereum 2.0 at its launch, which is expected sometime next month.
