During the past weeks, I have participated the beta test on Nutbox/Polkadot platform. I have mentioned about Nutbox in some of my previous posts before. They are the team behind dApp 
There was traditional staking to earn type of farming method in the product. One thing caught my eye though, was called Crowdloan.
I have seen similar thing on KuCoin, where users participate Kusama Parachain Auction. However, there are million things we can do in KuCoin exchange; therefore, I have never paid attention to it.
Well, since I am part of testing member on Nutbox/Polkdadot platform, I started to learn what this crowdloan is really about.
Let me start with some definition in case crowdloan is a strange word.
Background
Polkadot and Kusama are two completely independent, standalone networks, which shares a similar code base.
According to Coingecko,
Kusama is ab early, unaudited, and unrefined release of Polkadot.
What makes these two products unique is that Polkadot is a platform that networks all blockchains together. It allows diverse blockchains to transfer messages, regular data, and of course our favorite crypto currencies, in a trust-free fashion, moving around multiple blockchains.
Imagine our home network. Our computers, iPads, phones, printers, media center, file servers, home private cloud VMware environment (getting a bit in the nerdy territory here) can talk to each other. It is because they all connect to our home router.
Polkadot is the home router for blockchains.
However, not every single blockchain built in the garage can join the Polkadot/Kusama network. A new project must participate a Parachain Slot Auction and win the bid before authorized to connect to the family of all other chains.
According to an article I have read on Kraken:
As the current state, Polkadot can support up to 100 Parachains.
Crowdloan Slot Auction
Project team and their supporters, who hold $KSM can bond their fund to the Polkadot/Kusama network for the support of the project. All crypto bonded to the project will be lock throughout the lease duration once the project wins the auction bid; and can be re-claimed once the duration ends.
The beta testing environment I had been through was set on Polkadot’s TestNet, Rococo. Therefore, token showed in the screenshot is $ROC.
For the trouble of contributors, project team may give all supporters their project’s native token via an airdrop. During the entire process, the supporters never give up their $KSM unlick traditional ICO.
It means that users buy the native token of the project with their own money in an ICO. But, for parachain auctions, users just lock their token until the lease expired, while getting the native tokens from their supported projects.
The duration is leasing period is between 6 months to 2 years.
Now, the new platform is live official Polkadot.nutbox.io. And I am glad I have participate and see the growth of a new product in front of my own eyes.
I'm going to get myself some $KSM for this.
It is always great to know that there are all the new areas to playing around in the crypto world. New technologies, new ideas, and new ways that generate wealth instead of getting 0.1% interests from our banking accounts.
And the best part, the product is built by a team involves with the development of HIVE/STEEM (WhereIn is a STEEM dApp before the split); not some big exchange.
Awesome!