Polkadot (DOT) Shoots 40% Above $11.50 to Become the Fifth-Largest Crypto Leaving Behind Litecoin (LTC)

In a massive rally, Polkadot (DOT) has entered the ranks of top-ten cryptocurrencies by market cap leaving behind long-time giants like Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). At press time, the DOT price is up 40% above $11.50 with its market cap surging past $10.2 billion.

Over the last month, the Polkadot bulls have really taken up the rally on a charge with the DOT price doubling in just 30 days. The major part of the Polkadot price rally comes just during the Christmas season of December 2020. As we can see from the chart below, the DOT price has been closely following the BTC rally over the last two weeks since December 28.

While the DOT price corrected earlier this week during Monday’s market crash, it formed support above $7 and has quickly rallied post that. Interestingly, the Polkadot rally comes just at a time when Bitcoin (BTC) has surged another 12% today moving closer to $37,000. On-chain data provider Santiment shows that the Github development activity is again showing a surge.

‼️ $DOT is having a field day, with a staggering +24% 24-hour rise on its way to a new #AllTimeHigh $10.56 a couple hours ago. #Github development activity is showing signs of rising again after a holiday break, and volume is maintaining very high levels. https://t.co/kJX8THCUHx pic.twitter.com/t01mKnXsIR

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) January 13, 2021

Over the last year, Polkadot has gained much popularity as an Ethereum-competitor although it is currently miles apart. The platform gained popularity by attracting development projects like Moonbeam that supports scalable smart contracts. It also hosts other diverse projects like KILT that offer digital identity.

Polkadot to Soon Gets Its First-Ever Parachain

The Polkadot blockchain network scales by spreading its transactions on multiple parallel blockchain shards dubbed Parachains. It looks like the platform is soon to get its first-ever Parachain. On Wednesday, January 13, the Plasm Network announced that it has managed to successfully connect with Polkadot testnet Rococo V1.

Polkadot’s Rococo-V1 testnet carries the latest version of the Parachain consensus. During the latest announcement, the Plasm Network mentioned:

“2021 is an exciting year for our community. Our highest priority in 2021 is to become a Polkadot parachain and build a dApps hub on Polkadot”.

Soon later, cross-chain DEX protocol Zenlink also announced its partnership with Plasm Network.

What a great news! We have entered into a strategic partnership with @Plasm_Network and plan to prioritize the integration of Zenlink DEX Module into Plasm Network for cross-chain tradings testing between parachains in the Rococo V1 environment.#Polkadot https://t.co/ijiZPhMUTL

— Zenlink (@ZenlinkPro) January 13, 2021