Last month, PolkaWorld published an article (Polkadot Core just sold for 2000 DOT! Soared 220 times in less than a month!), a Polkadot Coretime was sold for over 2000 DOT, sparking a major discussion in the community about pricing mechanisms and resource value. Recently, the anonymous whale user coretimenegotiation has spoken again, challenging Parity's attitude towards core value and bringing topics like technical Fellowship and DOT holders' rights to the forefront.
At this critical moment, we must rethink a question: Coretime is not just a technical resource; it is the only economic product of Polkadot.
'Five years ago, BTC $10,000, DOT $4; five years later, BTC $110,000, DOT is still $4. If we do not seriously consider the value of Coretime, then we have no future.'
—— A member of the Polkadot community
What is Coretime? Why is it the core product of Polkadot?
Most blockchains rely on transaction fees to generate revenue, while Polkadot deliberately lowers fees to the point of approaching zero. The underlying design philosophy is: Polkadot does not sell transactions but sells 'core'—i.e., Coretime.
Coretime can be understood as a 'computing power rental period' of the Polkadot network; you can think of it as a Web3 version of 'cloud server resources': if you want to run an application, you have to rent the core.
Polkadot is building two markets to support Coretime:
🏛 Primary Market: Direct auctions, projects obtain usage rights through bidding
👥 Secondary Market: Open free buying and selling, individuals or entities can participate in trading, reselling, and hoarding.
Following last month's 2000 DOT, Coretime recently sold for a price of 922 DOT.
coretimenegotiation stated that last week they deliberately did not renew a Polkadot core lease to see how the market would respond to the true value of Coretime, leading to the core immediately trading in the market for 922 DOT. This action was originally intended to test market demand but indirectly unsettled the entire mechanism's cognitive foundation.
coretimenegotiation suspects that Parity spent 922 DOT to purchase this core, a price far exceeding the 200 DOT procurement quote Parity initially proposed for Mythos's free renewal. coretimenegotiation also ridiculed that Parity's buyer account paid an extra tip of about 386 DOT (reward fee) during the operation due to unfamiliarity with the mechanism.
This directly led coretimenegotiation to question:
Did Parity underestimate or even mislead the value of the Core?
Is the current mechanism too complex, lacking documentation guidance, leading to operational errors and resource waste;
Does the secondary market design have a 'structural failure under idealism orientation'?
Why is the current mechanism concerning?
Polkadot Coretime has an 'automatic renewal' mechanism: as long as a parachain accepts a 3% monthly increase, it can skip market competition and monopolize core resources at a very low cost long-term.
If the initial price of the core is only ~9 DOT and is retained long-term by parachains with a 3% increase, after a year, Polkadot's revenue remains negligible. Some estimates even suggest that if the current structure is maintained, it may take thousands of years to generate significant on-chain revenue. 👀
This is undoubtedly a heavy blow for investors expecting an increase in DOT value.
An investor commented:
'Coretime is the only product of Polkadot; currently, Polkadot can provide at most 250 cores. If the treasury spends 100 million USD each year, each core must sell for 400,000 DOT annually, equivalent to 33,333 DOT per month, to offset annual fiscal expenditures.
But now, the entire system is controlled by a group of idealists who do not hold DOT; they advocate for Coretime to become a public good and for it to be free, while they themselves rely on selling DOT for their salaries.
Polkadot's Core is an extremely scarce and high-value resource, the economic pillar of the entire network. If a core can be sold at a low price (such as 200 DOT), or such behavior is viewed negatively by the community, then that is the real problem.
https://forum.polkadot.network/t/april-2025-coretime-purchase/12526/53?u=xiaojie_polkaworld
This investor hopes the community will face the market value of the core, understand the logic of economic models, and not resist based on prejudice, politics, or conservative views. However, on the other hand, low cost and price control are also advantages Polkadot hopes to offer developers and compete with other L1s; currently, there is a significant divergence between developers and investors in this mechanism!
coretimenegotiation also pointed out that behind this imbalance of mechanisms, the role of the technical Fellowship cannot be ignored.
They were slow to react when the Coretime pricing mechanism was out of control;
Long-term enjoyment of salaries paid by DOT holders without providing timely systematic solutions;
More likely to repeatedly claim rewards in Parity, the Web3 Foundation, and the Treasury.
He calls on DOT holders: if reform does not happen, it is recommended to vote against (NAY) proposals related to Fellowship salaries. 👀
Deeper challenge: Do we truly understand market mechanisms?
Another community member studying economics, who also attempts to solve mechanism problems, has voiced that if we are looking for a solution to the Coretime pricing issue, it should include the following characteristics:
To deterministically decouple the 'preference layer' from the final settlement price;
Eliminate assumptions about the price/quantity relationship and support convex preferences (not the 'quasi-linear' preferences previously suggested);
Pricing curves are smooth and differentiable, aligning with continuous variation logic; able to converge and stabilize at a unique price;
It is a peer-to-peer mechanism suitable for decentralized scenarios;
The computational cost of each peer-to-peer transaction is low, and execution efficiency is high;
Satisfies Pareto Optimality.
He stated that he started constructing related models as early as 2000 and is willing to provide a mathematical framework to jointly build a more reasonable pricing market with the community.
PolkaWorld's observations and suggestions
This event is not just a Coretime auction; it is more like a mirror reflecting the current challenges Polkadot faces in several aspects:
1. The establishment of the resource market mechanism is still immature
How to reasonably price and allow free circulation of core resources? This experiment provides a clear signal.
2. The complexity of the mechanism remains high
For non-developers and even small to medium teams, the current Coretime mechanism is not friendly enough, and it is easy to make understanding or operational errors.
3. Parity's attitude and openness towards related mechanisms
As an ecosystem that values decentralization the most, Parity should have a more open attitude in listening to community feedback. However, we also believe that Parity and the Web3 Foundation are actively addressing related issues!
4. Information transparency and education remain key tasks
The lack of Coretime documentation and unclear processes is one of the biggest bottlenecks hindering the effective use of ecological resources.
Polkadot is moving towards a modular, high-flexibility future with resource usage on demand. The market mechanism for Coretime will be a key part of this. The 'free auction experiment' initiated by the community, regardless of agreement with the results, has indeed provided us with a rare real-world case and a window to rethink system design.
PolkaWorld will continue to monitor the evolution of this event and welcomes more developers, economists, and governance observers to join the discussion to build a truly fair, transparent, and sustainable resource market for Polkadot.
Join the discussion here: https://forum.polkadot.network/t/april-2025-coretime-purchase/12526/51?u=xiaojie_polkaworld