Sharded blockchain Polkadot not too long ago set tongues wagging after confirming the subsequent batch of parachain auctions on its experimental community Kusama. However because the crypto neighborhood waits with bated breath for candidates to announce themselves, it’s value remembering that Polkadot is already alive and kicking in its personal proper.

Based by Ethereum O.G. Dr Gavin Wooden, Polkadot has lengthy been touted as a viable rival to the world’s best-known good contract community, a consequence of its refined infrastructure, thriving developer neighborhood, and promise of true interoperability between functions operating on separate chains.

Already a prime 10 cryptocurrency by market cap (DOT), the platform has been 5 years within the making and finally goals to assist a worldwide community of interoperable parachains and parathreads seamlessly speaking with one another. Within the close to future, deploying on Polkadot could possibly be a no brainer for savvy builders – each from a value and efficiency perspective.

However that’s all for the long run. Within the right here and now, the flourishing Polkadot ecosystem is such that customers can benefit from numerous alternatives whether or not their curiosity lies in buying and selling, gaming, constructing, privateness or IoT. Listed here are 3 ways to leverage the Polkadot blockchain proper now.

Stake DOT to Earn Yield

As a result of Polkadot makes use of a Nominated Proof-of-Stake (NPoS) algorithm, staking is integral to the safety of the community. In direct staking, you possibly can both be a nominator, tasked with nominating validator candidates whom you belief that will help you earn DOT rewards, or a validator, validating proofs from collators and collaborating in consensus with different validators.

Within the case of nominating straight on Polkadot, a minimal of 80 DOT tokens is required – simply over $2,000 value at at present’s costs. Nonetheless, as a result of there’s a most of 22,500 nominators, having adequate DOT tokens doesn’t truly assure you a staking berth.

Organising a validator node on Polkadot is a bit more advanced because it requires important system administration expertise. What’s extra, the minimal stake wanted to be elected as an energetic validator is dynamic and varies over time. The common returns Polkadot validators can count on are within the vary of 10%.

If you happen to discover the thought of direct staking a bit daunting, there are different companies that mean you can take part. Binance, for instance, enables you to use DOT for high-yield farming of latest tokens on its Lauchpool; customers are additionally free to stake DOT in Binance Locked Staking to earn as much as 31.49%.

Kraken is one other top-tier cryptocurrency alternate that rolled out assist for Polkadot staking final 12 months, with yearly rewards of 12%.

Use Dot.Finance’s DeFi Suite

One other nice strategy to maximize your DOT yields is to leverage DOT.Finance, a devoted DeFi aggregator for your complete Polkadot ecosystem. Moderately than merely staking DOT to earn a set proportion, DOT.Finance helps customers generate a greater fee of return by using revolutionary yield optimization methods throughout a swathe of DeFi dApps.

The cool factor about DOT.Finance is that its good contracts mechanically compound your staking returns on the optimum frequency to extend APY. Within the phrases of the crew, “it’s like farming with a tractor as an alternative of pulling a yoke in your shoulders.”

And it’ll quickly get even higher: within the close to future, DOT.Finance will enable customers to carry Polkadot Index tokens, enabling them to realize publicity to quite a lot of Polkadot-based property.

Fly to the Moon(beam)

The upcoming Moonbeam launch on Polkadot presents one more alternative to earn. Moonbeam, for the uninitiated, is a brand-new Ethereum-compatible good contract platform that simplifies the method of constructing natively interoperable decentralized functions.

Moonbeam’s Take Flight token occasion will get underway on September 7 and goals to thank the Moonbeam neighborhood for its continued assist by shelling out 80 million Glimmer (GLMR) tokens throughout three rounds, all of which require a whitelist to take part (register right here).

Whereas the early entry spherical is particularly geared in direction of key challenge supporters (Moonriver crowdloan members, PolkaPet holders, and many others), the second is rather more open: should you’re a member of the Telegram channel or Discord server, you’re just about good to go.

One nifty situation of Take Flight is the low contribution threshold, which means on a regular basis buyers get the identical alternative to earn as main bag-holders. The three staggered rounds also needs to guarantee a large cross-section of members, all of whom could have a stake within the Moonbeam Community’s success.

Properly, there you’ve got it: three strong choices for these trying to leverage Polkadot earlier than a single parachain has launched. You’re welcome.