April 2025 Coretime Purchase

Ecosystem
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Malicious – maybe. But certainly yet another ecosystem actor that is trying to extract as much value as possible from the network under the guise of “I’m doing it for your benefit, don’t you see that?”

Exploitative? Yes, by all appearances the system was set up with a loophole that created an unfair market condition, and that has been taken advantage of to the short term detriment of teams building on the network.

Or if the initial design of coretime sales predicted this would have happened, would guardrails have been put in place, or would everyone have thrown up their hands and said “let the market figure it out”?

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42

That is true, I don’t think anyone in the initial Coretime Sales discussion anticipated that multiple chains would simply forget to renew the one resource they can’t function without. I’m honestly still surprised by that, never saw it coming.

I guess you can call that a “loophole,” but it seems to me like it’s just negligence.

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43

Core time should have start as a public good and projects could apply for it through proposals and community votes who gets the core time and how long time. This core time wouldn’t be possible to transfer or sold on secondary markets. This would show how much there is ask for the true need of computation. Kind of base level.

Afterwards we could adjust how much of the core time is set for free markets and that should be build on automated market maker mechanics where price grows rapidly if demand is high. Core time bought through AMM should be transferrable and retraidable.

Just my two cents.

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44

Hey, here Gonzalo from Mangata ( 2110 ), please let us know how to adquire a core for our parachain, I alreasy sent an email, but no answer.

45

Yes, you will be able to purchase Coretime using DOT.

46

Do you know how? Evh is sold on Kusama! :open_mouth:

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We have acquired two additional Polkadot cores at 92.271 DOT each, bringing our holdings to 11 of the 20 available Polkadot cores and 73 of the 94 Kusama cores.

We are offering Polkadot cores for sale via two routes:

  • Direct paraID assignment (available through 31 May 2025).
  • Paramanager account transfer for paraID 3420, which carries nine cores with a renewal fee of approximately 9 DOT per core. Ownership is transferred by assigning the proxy controller account.

Pricing is negotiable; prospective buyers may refer to earlier forum posts for benchmark figures. Prices are of course negotiable within reason. The next sale cycle is expected to start at around 920 DOT per core, with renewals at a similar rate—about 3,680 DOT over four months. It will be substantially cheaper to purchase these 90 DOT renewable cores rather than purchase and renew the 900 DOT cores within a few months.

Kusama cores remain available as well. Multiple parachains in our portfolio are assigned 12 cores apiece; we estimate the price to sell one such chain at roughly 800 KSM, which covers parachain registration costs, 12 cores at 50 KSM each, and a modest markup. Those wishing to purchase cores on Kusama must take this into account, we cannot sell individual cores at this time on Kusama.

Regarding governance, we are well aware of Kusama opengov referendum 522 that proposes releasing the remaining 46 cores to the market. In our opinion this referendum should pass, as should a similar referendum on Polkadot. The supply of cores is arbitrarily limited in order to protect the price of cores. We argue that current supply caps artificially support core prices and reveal flaws in the allocation and renewal mechanisms. We further urge the Polkadot Technical Fellowship, Web3 Foundation, and Parity Technologies to only deploy upgrades to the relay chains that are robust enough to work in a permissionless system, and do not rely on manual interventions to safeguard market stability.

We have previously stated in our email correspondence with Bastian that we are aware that the Polkadot Technical Fellowship could whitelist cores to specific projects. Once again, we believe that such actions undermine core market integrity and further instances would contradict assurances made in Polkadot opengov referendum 1536.

We will continue our activities within these markets and welcome any inquiries at coretimenegotiation@protonmail.me

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48

Hello everyone,

We have executed the sale of one Polkadot core for 2,000 DOT. Core 64 was assigned to paraID 3415 upon receipt of payment.

Payment transaction: https://polkadot.subscan.io/extrinsic/26028880-2

Core assignment transaction: coretime- polkadot.subscan. io/extrinsic/1791677-2

ParaID 3415 now holds a renewable core under the following cost projections, illustrating the benefit of purchasing now versus waiting for the next sale:

92.27 DOT Core

  • Initial purchase: 2,000 DOT
  • Renewal 1: 95 DOT (total 2,095 DOT)
  • Renewal 2: 98 DOT (total 2,193 DOT)
  • Renewal 3: 101 DOT (total 2,294 DOT)
  • Renewal 4: 104 DOT (total 2,398 DOT)

922 DOT Core

  • Initial purchase: 922 DOT
  • Renewal 1: 950 DOT (total 1,872 DOT)
  • Renewal 2: 978 DOT (total 2,850 DOT)
  • Renewal 3: 1,007 DOT (total 3,857 DOT)
  • Renewal 4: 1,038 DOT (total 4,895 DOT)

To remind everyone of our current offerings, we have the following for sale:

  • One Polkadot core for 2,000 DOT

    • Originally acquired for 92 DOT; renewal schedule as detailed above
    • The purchaser will save money after 2 months versus buying a core on the open market next month

  • Polkadot chain with 9 cores

    • Available for lease-swap via transfer of paramanager proxy account to support elastic scaling
    • Renewal cost approximately 9 DOT per core

  • Five Kusama chains (12 cores each) at 800 KSM per chain

  • One Kusama chain with 13 cores

We will continue our activities within these markets and welcome any inquiries at coretimenegotiation@protonmail.me

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49

Very cool!

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50

I think I should post this here: CORETIME SALES: only biddable for those who actually deploy

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51

Hello everyone,

We recently allowed one of our Polkadot core slots to expire without renewal to observe market demand under natural conditions. Almost immediately, the core was acquired for approximately 922 DOT, showing that our thesis that cores are a valuable resource that was undervalued was correct. This is a reminder that those in the ecosystem who previously convinced DOT holders that cores were valueless were wrong.

As of today, we hold 73 out of 94 Kusama cores and 9 out of 22 Polkadot cores.

Based on on-chain data, we assess that the buyer was Parity Technologies. We would like to remind Parity Technologies that our inbox is always open if they would like to purchase additional cores from us, which will be ultimately cheaper in the long run. We are surprised that Parity has not suggested the use of an escrow account or similar in their negotiations.

To Parity or any other parties, always feel free to email us here regarding the purchase of Polkadot or Kusama cores: coretimenegotiation@proton.me

This shows that Parity’s initial offer of 200 DOT was, as we stated, a low-ball offer, which then resulted in our high-ball offer. The core, which was purchased recently, has a renewal price of ~922 DOT, which is far greater than our cores that renew at ~9 DOT. In fact, in just 4 months, it would have been better to purchase one or more of our 9 DOT cores, without trying to negotiate the initial purchase price lower.

Analysis of the relevant blocks indicates that the purchasing account submitted multiple tip transactions—totaling roughly 386 DOT—suggesting limited familiarity with the coretime mechanism. This activity highlights persistent flaws in the system’s design and the need for continued refinement.

https: //coretime- polkadot .subscan.io/extrinsic/1941750-2 - 47 DOT tip
https: //coretime- polkadot. Subscan. io/extrinsic/1941750-3 - 47 DOT tip
https ://coretime- polkadot. subscan. io/extrinsic/1941750-4 - 47 DOT tip
https: //coretime- polkadot. subscan. io/extrinsic/1941750-5 - 47 DOT tip
https:/ /coretime- polkadot. subscan. io/extrinsic/1941750-6 - 47 DOT tip
https:/ /coretime- polkadot. subscan. io/extrinsic/1941750-7 - 47 DOT tip
https:/ /coretime- polkadot. subscan. io/extrinsic/1941750-8 - 47 DOT tip
https:/ /coretime- polkadot. subscan. io/extrinsic/1941750-9 - 47 DOT tip
https:/ /coretime- polkadot. subscan. io/extrinsic/1941750-10 - 10 DOT tip

This account was heavily funded to attempt to obfuscate the amount of DOT that would be tipped. Unfortunately, the owner of these accounts wasted ~386 DOT in tips, which to remind everyone is more than the amount of DOT they offered for our core originally for Mythos, which we hope goes to show the extent of Parity, Web3 Foundation and the Polkadot Technical Fellowship’s mental gymnastics and dishonesty into the actual value of cores.

We would like to thank those from the community who reached out to us via email to express their gratitude for the actions we have undertaken, which seems to have spurred on a renewed vigor in the Polkadot Technical Fellowship, which the token holders pay, to fix fundamental issues with the coretime system. Token holders should always scrutinize the Polkadot Technical Fellowship, and the Polkadot Technical Fellowship should work for the benefit of token holders and ecosystem teams; otherwise, we would suggest that token holders vote NAY on any future salary payment referendums to that collective. We would also suggest that the community of DOT token holders actively review the salary claims from members of the Polkadot Technical Fellowship to ensure that fellows are not double or triple claiming for the same work they carry out under their work at Parity Technologies, Web3 Foundation, and treasury grants.

We still have people emailing us who wish to purchase cores; however, we do not believe these people understand how coretime works, and it is difficult to demonstrate the options these potential clients have, which we believe reinforces our original statement about the lack of documentation and complexity of the coretime mechanism. We remain open for offers and negotiation for our owned cores.

4 Likes
52

I dont think anyone objected that?

Curious who that is. I think coretime/blockspace was always thought of as a valuable resource.

I really dont understand where you are getting this from. I am probably missing context but it does not make sense to me. Core prices going up is very good for Polkadot long term as it shows a clear value proposition. Who said that cores have low value?

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:man_shrugging: One thing for sure, they are worth more than 200 DOT. Does that mean Basti was trying to rug “The Baron”? :man_shrugging:

Considering we need to find 100M DOT/yr of inflows under the couch cushion – I don’t understand a lot of the negativity surrounding this. As an investor who knows there can be, maximally, inclusive of reserved cores, ~250 cores available (4val/pv) – I was left speechless. This is the product of polkadot. The only product of polkadot. Each core needs to earn 400,000 DOT/yr to offset outflows. That’s 33,333 DOT/core/month.

The response to “The Baron” was bad. Very bad.

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54

Very clearly, they are my heroes. They are saving the DOT token.Polkassembly - Coretime : People need to know #3264

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Hello guys,

I was trying to initiate a discussion about this without much success on the PBA Alumni chat and I was quickly directed here.

Anyways, if you stumble upon a solution to Coretime price that:

  1. Detaches preference layer from settlement price deterministically,
  2. Eliminates price/qty assumptions, with convex preferences (not semi-linear as has been proposed),
  3. Is smooth, with differentiable price evolution curve,
  4. Converges and stabilizes on a unique price,
  5. Is p2p, suited for decentralized scenarios,
  6. Is cheap and efficient to execute per p2p transaction,
  7. Is Pareto Optimal.

Then I would love to participate in the discussion, because as far as I understand that’s what I’ve got.
This is a project that started in the year 2000, when I was studying economics in Chile.

You can find the mathematical framework of my solution here:

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