👨🏫Crowdloan FAQ
Q: What is a crowdloan?
A: A crowdloan is a way for parachain project teams to raise DOT or KSM tokens for the use of bidding in a parachain slot auction. When a user participates in a project's crowdloan, they are effectively backing / showing their support for that project during the parachain slot auction.
The DOT / KSM tokens which users contribute during the crowdloan are never transferred to the parachain project team, so users will always receive their DOT or KSM tokens back at the end of the parachain slot lease period.
Parachain project teams often will reward crowdloan contributors by issuing a percentage of the parachain's native / governance token proportionally based on the amount of DOT / KSM the user has contributed.
Q: How long are my tokens locked for?
A: When participating in a crowdloan, your DOT / KSM tokens are locked based on the parachain slot lease periods which the parachain project team has bid for.
For Polkadot parachain slot auctions, each lease period is 12 weeks long. Teams can bid for up to 8 lease periods at a time. Teams usually bid for the maximum of 8 lease periods, therefore usually your tokens will be locked for a total duration of 96 weeks when participating in a Polkadot crowdloan.
For Kusama parachain slot auctions, each lease period is 6 weeks long. Teams can bid for up to 8 lease periods at a time. Teams usually bid for the maximum of 8 lease periods, therefore usually your tokens will be locked for a total of 48 weeks when participating in a Kusama crowdloan.
Q: How can I see my balance that is locked in crowdloans?
A: Using Nova Wallet you can quickly see your total balance which is locked in crowdloans. To see a breakdown of your crowdloan contributions, and information regarding when the tokens will be returned to you:
Click on the "Crowdloans" tab.
Select either Polkadot or Kusama at the top of the screen.
Tap on "Your contributions".
You will now see a breakdown of your crowdloan contributions.
Q: Where & how can I claim my crowdloan rewards?
A: Parachain projects handle vesting of crowdloan rewards in a variety of ways:
Automatic unlocking of tokens in each block
Claim via a dapp, which you can access via the Nova Wallet DApp Browser
You should contact the individual parachain project for information on how to properly claim rewards.
Q: How can I see my crowdloan rewards that I am entitled to?
A: For most (but not all) tokens, you can navigate to the asset in the assets tab. If you click on the asset, you should see the Total / Transferable / Locked balance.
Crowdloan reward tokens are typically vested, and can be seen in the "locked" balance. These crowdloan reward tokens will typically be under the sub-catagory "Ormlvest" or "Vesting".
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