Polkadot is the flagship protocol of Web3 Foundation, a Swiss Foundation with a mission to facilitate an open-source, fully functional, and user-friendly decentralized web. Polkadot’s founders are Dr. Gavin Wood, Robert Habermeier, and Peter Czaban. Wood, Web3 Foundation’s president, is recognized in the industry as Ethereum co-founder, Parity Technologies founder, and one of the contributors who created the smart contract coding language Solidity. Wood is also credited with coining the term Web3. Polkadot concluded its first Parachain auctions at the end of 2021, assigning the first five slots to the following auction winners: Acala, Moonbeam, Astar, Parallel, and Clover. These projects will have their parachain slots locked in for 96 weeks, guaranteed by the DOT bidders committed as collateral.