DeFi platform Karura has obtained the first ever lease on the Kusama network. Polkadot is one of the most exciting platforms for any project that wants faster speeds than Ethereum, and perhaps a higher level of scalability.
The Kusama network is the canary network for the Polkadot ecosystem.
Karura was able to raise more than 500,000 Kusama tokens (KSM) to secure its lease. These tokens are worth more than $100 million at current prices, making the lease on Kusama an expensive proposition.
As a promising DeFi application, Karura will use its lease on the Kusama network to develop its platform further, and hopefully come away with a platform that will be much closer to a commercial launch that allows the wider crypto community to take full advantage of the technology.
The Polkadot space is seeing a rise in interest as Ethereum developers look for other platforms that will likely scale with ease, and this makes Kusama appear very attractive.
Kusama is a Hot Development Space
Polkadot is seen as one of the only viable alternatives to Ethereum, and any developer that is serious about creating a platform on it has to be envious of Karura.
There are two more auctions coming, so if a project didn’t get this slot – they have two more chances to tap the power of Kusama in the near future.
Kusama and Polkadot are standalone networks – but they were built in nearly the same way.
With a faster governance cycle and much higher risk parameters, developing on Kusama likely means a shorter development process and an easy roll-out onto Polkadot.
There is little doubt that Karura is working on a winning platform, and this move to secure the first lease on Kusama will help the team at Karura to speed up development of an extremely promising DeFi platform that will presumably be launched on Polkadot.
The Expansion is Here
The ideas that are banging around in the DeFi development space are incredible. What started with Ethereum and smart contracts has expanded into a holistic ecosystem that could actually be scaled into something that would have global reach.
Bitcoin was never going to replace the global financial system – what is happening with DeFi – well, this could be the way that central banks are replaced by a decentralized network.
Much like the early days of Bitcoin – think 2014 – DeFi is still very much in its infancy. One key difference is that today there are a massive number of developers who are working on DeFi platforms, and there is real money behind the projects.
$100 million is not a small sum – and as these platforms grow – the numbers are likely to rise right along with the popularity of DeFi.
Karura Has Great Ideas
As a DeFi project, Karura ticks all the boxes. It is building a platform that would allow a huge amount of flexibility in terms of trading tokens, and building financial structures that could accomplish many things.
Because it would be native to Polkadot, many of the issues that have plagued Ethereum-based platforms simply wouldn’t exist.
Polkadot is a fast blockchain that will never be subject to the high transaction costs that emerged in the Ethereum ecosystem. While no platform is perfect, Polkadot is a leap forward from where Ethereum was a year ago.
With projects like Karura securing large sums of money to develop next-generation DeFi tools, there is a very good chance that this sector will drive the cutting edge of FinTech for many years to come.
To learn more about Karura, or how the Kusama network allows projects to create a rapid Polkadot-based development cycle, just click here for more information.
