DOT

Polkadot

Layer 0

A shared-security network that capped its supply and cut issuance, but still has almost no paid demand.

Rebuild, demand unproven v1.2 · as of 2026-10-20 · framework v1.13 Coinsight · all analyses
Bottom line

Polkadot spent the year fixing its economics: a 2.1B DOT hard cap, a ~54% issuance cut on 14 Mar 2026, a leaner treasury that turned a profit, and a native stablecoin (dotUSD) since 8 Oct. The token did not follow: −63% over a year and −98% from the 2021 ATH, with a low of $0.75 on 19 Aug. Paid usage (fees and coretime sales) is tiny next to the ~80M DOT issued over 12 months, so the case rests on JAM and new apps on Polkadot Hub, neither of which has proven demand yet.

Scorecard (1–5)
Project
Token performance
Tokenomics
Price
$1.15
−0.3% 24h · +1% 30d · CoinGecko 20 Oct
Market cap
$1.97B
rank #51 · FDV $1.97B
24h volume
$153.4M
7.8% of market cap
From ATH
−98%
ATH $54.98, Nov 2021
2026 YTD
−36%
$1.79 → $1.15
Treasury
~32M DOT
≈ $58M at end 2025 · Q4 2025 report

The last 12 months

$1$2$3$4Oct 25NovDecJan 26FebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecJan 272025-11-11: $3.2636$3.26 peak2026-03-14: $1.4624$1.462026-08-19: $0.751$0.75 low2026-10-20: $1.1508$1.151Asset Hub migration2Wood launches “Second Era”3Treasury turns a profit4Issuance cut, 2.1B cap live5Year low at $0.756dotUSD stablecoin live7DOT DAO strategy proposed8Next coretime sale9Polkadot app public launch10JAM mainnet
TechProductGovernanceTokenomicsMarketUpcoming

Daily closes from CoinGecko, 21 Oct 2025 to 20 Oct 2026.

Key events
  1. 1
    04 Nov 25 Asset Hub migration. DOT balances, staking and governance move from the relay chain to Asset Hub (now Polkadot Hub).
  2. 2
    15 Nov 25 Wood launches “Second Era”. At Sub0, Gavin Wood presents the Polkadot app as the new entry point and says JAM is about a year away.
  3. 3
    20 Jan 26 Treasury turns a profit. Q4 2025 report: spending down to $7.4M and a net +1.6M DOT, the first positive quarter under OpenGov.
  4. 4
    14 Mar 26 Issuance cut, 2.1B cap live. Annual issuance drops from ~120M to ~55M DOT; burning stops and revenue goes to the new DAP.
  5. 5
    19 Aug 26 Year low at $0.75. After a slide from $1.19 (1 Jun), DOT bottoms at $0.75, then recovers to $1.27 by 28 Sep.
  6. 6
    08 Oct 26 dotUSD stablecoin live. First native stablecoin, approved via Ref 1944, minted 1:1 against USDT under a supply cap.
  7. 7
    12 Oct 26 DOT DAO strategy proposed. Ref 1954 proposes focusing growth on user adoption and on-chain incentives; not yet voted.
  8. 8
    ~Nov Next coretime sale. Cycle 27 opens about 28 days after cycle 26 (18 Oct); watch price and cores sold.
  9. 9
    Soon Polkadot app public launch. Devnet builds with account search and privacy indicators shared 9 Oct; no public release date.
  10. 10
    TBC JAM mainnet. Still on testnet with no confirmed date; Wood now avoids firm timelines.

How a rollup buys blockspace and runs a transaction on Polkadot

Rollup team
Buys bulk coretime

Pays DOT on the Coretime chain for a core for 28 days (~1,000 DOT in cycle 26).

Coretime chain
Assigns the core

Sale revenue goes to the DAP and treasury; since March it is no longer burned.

User
Sends a transaction

Pays a fee in the rollup's own token, or in DOT on Polkadot Hub.

Collator
Builds the block

The rollup's node packs transactions with a proof of validity.

Validators
Check and finalize

DOT-staked validators re-check the block and finalize it in seconds; paid from issuance.

Polkadot Hub
Settles DOT and assets

Balances, staking, governance and dotUSD live here since Nov 2025.

Where DOT comes in: rollups pay DOT for coretime, validators and nominators stake DOT and earn new issuance, and Hub fees are paid in DOT. Users on a rollup often never touch DOT, and since March 2026 nothing is burned, so value accrual depends on coretime demand and on staking.

Usage and adoption

DOT per year, last 12 months (estimates)
Coretime sales (2025)
~9.2k
Transaction fees (est.)
<10k
Issuance rate since Mar 2026
~55M/yr
DOT issued, Oct 2025 to Oct 2026
~80M

Issued ≈ 120M/yr for 21 Oct 2025 to 14 Mar 2026 (~47M) plus ~55M/yr from 14 Mar to 20 Oct (~33M); calculated from the published schedule. Coretime sales of 9.18k DOT in 2025 come from Parity year-end metrics as cited in a sponsored article. Fees: a Token Terminal snapshot showed ~$1.1k over 30 days, so well under 10k DOT a year (rough). Paid usage covers far below 0.1% of new supply, and since March none of it is burned.

  • weak signal
    Transaction fees
    ~$1.1k / 30 days

    Token Terminal snapshot, date uncertain; DefiLlama showed $0 for 24h. Fees are tiny by design and after the Hub migration.

  • medium signal
    Coretime sales
    ~9.2k DOT (2025)

    The cleanest paid-usage signal: teams paying for blockspace. Cycle 26 sale opened 18 Oct at ~1,000 DOT per core (explorer).

  • medium signal
    Treasury result
    +1.6M DOT (Q4 2025)

    First net-positive quarter under OpenGov after spending fell to $7.4M; a cost cut, not revenue growth.

  • weak signal
    dotUSD stablecoin
    Live since 8 Oct

    Minted 1:1 against USDT under a cap; supply too new to judge.

  • weak signal
    US spot ETF
    21Shares, since Mar

    Reported only five active trading days since launch.

Polkadot sells blockspace (coretime) and charges fees, but both are tiny next to the ~80M DOT issued in 12 months. The supply side is now fixed by the cap and the March cut; the demand side still needs JAM, Hub apps and dotUSD to produce paid usage.

Project

What it is
A sharded layer-0/1 (mainnet 2020) where rollups, called parachains, rent shared security as coretime. Since the Nov 2025 migration, DOT balances, staking and governance live on Polkadot Hub (formerly Asset Hub), not the relay chain.
Team
Founded by Gavin Wood (Ethereum co-founder). Parity Technologies writes most core code; Wood returned as Parity CEO in Aug 2025. Web3 Foundation funds research; the on-chain OpenGov treasury funds the ecosystem.
Technology
Shared security, agile coretime (blockspace sold by the core), XCM cross-chain messaging and PolkaVM. JAM (Join-Accumulate Machine) is Wood's planned successor to the relay chain: a general compute layer; still on testnet.
Traction
dotUSD, the first native stablecoin, went live on 8 Oct 2026 (Ref 1944), minted 1:1 against USDT under a cap. Treasury posted a net +1.6M DOT in Q4 2025. Fees and coretime revenue remain very small.
Competitors
Ethereum and its rollup stacks (OP Stack, Arbitrum Orbit), Cosmos app-chains, Avalanche L1s, and fast monolithic chains like Solana.
Key risks
Little paid demand for blockspace; JAM timelines have slipped before; a thinly traded US ETF; governance can redirect funds (the DAP) without clear return to holders.
Roadmap
Announced but not launched: JAM mainnet (testnet, no firm date; Wood said “about a year” at Sub0 in Nov 2025), the Polkadot app as the new entry point (devnet builds 9 Oct), DOT-collateralised dotUSD, DAP phase 2 routing fees and coretime revenue, and Ref 1954 on a DOT DAO strategy.

Token performance

1-year return (21 Oct 2025 → 20 Oct 2026, CoinGecko)
DOT
-63%
BTC
-25%
ETH
-38%

DOT fell much more than BTC and ETH over 12 months. Over 3 years it is down about −70% (from ~$3.9 in Oct 2023), against BTC (~+179%, from ~$29.7k) and ETH (~+53%, from ~$1.6k). 3-year figures are manual and approximate because the free CoinGecko API covers 365 days.

Range 2026
$0.75 low (19 Aug) to $2.29 high (14 Jan), daily closes; now $1.15
12-month drawdown
−77%, from $3.26 (11 Nov 2025) to $0.75 (19 Aug 2026)
Liquidity
$153M traded in 24h, 7.8% of market cap; rank #51
Relative strength
+53% off the August low; held flat in the week to 15 Oct while ETH fell 8% and SOL 10%. 21Shares US ETF (since Mar 2026) trades only sporadically
ATH check ATH check passed. The $54.98 high (4 Nov 2021) came over a year after DOT started trading in Aug 2020 and was a full-cycle peak, not a launch spike; price is now −97.9% below it.

Tokenomics

Supply
1.708B DOT circulating, all unlocked. Hard cap of 2.1B DOT (Ref 1710, 2025 Wish for Change, live since Mar 2026), so ~392M DOT remain to be minted.
Inflation
~120M DOT a year until 14 Mar 2026, then ~55M a year (sources say 55M to 56.9M), about 3.2% of supply. Every two years the rate drops by 13.14% of the remaining unminted DOT; next step ~Mar 2028.
Unlocks
No investor vesting left; new float comes from issuance. Unbonding for nominators was cut from 28 days to ~1–2 days in April 2026, which makes staked DOT more liquid.
Utility
Staking (validators need 10k DOT self-stake), OpenGov voting, buying coretime, fees on Polkadot Hub; planned as dotUSD collateral.
Concentration
Treasury holds ~32M DOT (end 2025, ~1.9% of supply). Founding entities' holdings not re-checked for this page.
Sinks
Burning stopped in March 2026: fees, coretime revenue and slashes now go to the Dynamic Allocation Pool (DAP) and treasury. The main sink is staking; ETF demand is small.

Bull case

JAM reaches mainnet and Polkadot Hub apps plus dotUSD create real coretime and fee demand, while supply now grows only ~3% a year. Price holds $1.10, reclaims the $1.27 September and October highs and heads back toward the $2.29 January high.

Bear case

JAM slips again and paid usage stays near zero, so issuance keeps outweighing demand even after the cut. Price loses $1.10 and the $0.94 mid-September close and retests the $0.75 August low.

Watch before the next re-run

  • JAM mainnet date and Polkadot app public launch
  • Coretime sale prices and cores sold each 28-day cycle
  • dotUSD supply and whether DOT collateral is added
  • $1.10 support and the $1.27 recent high

Where to trade

Krakenlisted

DOT against EUR · USD · USDT · USDC · BTC · ETH · GBP · JPY

24h $1.68M · ±2% depth $938.7k

OKXlisted

DOT against EUR · USDT · USDC

24h $2.27M · ±2% depth $558.3k

Largest exchanges

Exchange24h vol±2% depth
KuCoinDOT/USDT$14.7M$209.6k
BinanceDOT/USDT$6.50M$623.6k
HTXDOT/USDT$3.31M$10.9k
MEXCDOT/USDT$2.08M$1.24M
OKXDOT/USDT$2.01M$558.3k

Deepest DEX pools

No on-chain pool with real trading found.

On-chain share of all DOT volume: 0.0%.

As of 21 Oct 2026 · CoinGecko tickers (24h volume, ±2% depth). ±2% depth is the money it takes to move the price 2% either way: the real size of a market. Exchanges ranked by volume among well-known venues; pools by depth. Not investment advice.

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