DeFi protocol Acala raises $400M in crowdloans during first Polkadot parachain a

[Btceth01]

Both parachains on Polkadot and DeFi functions on Acala are still undergoing heavy development.Decentralized finance protocol Acala announced Monday that they have raised 8.5 million DOT (worth $451.8 million at time of publication) from over 53,000 participants. The protocol is also set to win the first parachain auction on Polkadot.

Unlike typical crowdfunding rounds, Acala's financing mechanism is a crowdloan, which means it will eventually need to pay back the "crypto debt" it has solicited from investors.

On Friday, Polkadot developers added the first parachain onto its network. Parachains are custom, project-specific blockchains that can be integrated into the main blockchain. The distinguishing feature of Polkadot is its Cross-Consensus Message Format. In essence, it would enable users to send and receive assets and execute smart contracts between parachains. Currently, however, the technology is still under heavy development. Source