• Moonriver won a parachain slot on the Kusama Network and is now producing blocks on the network.
  • The launch was successful as a result of a crowdloan hosted by the Moonbeam Foundation.

Polkadot smart contract platform Moonbeam has secured a parachain slot for its sister network Moonriver on the Kusama network. The secured slot represents the third-ever parachain slot on Kusama. The Moonbeam Team announced the recent development in a blog post published on the 29th of June.

According to the announcement, Moonbeam was able to secure the parachain slot through a community-focused crowdloan campaign run by the Moonbeam Foundation. Moonbeam said 5,977 contributors donated to the crowdloan. In total, the crowdloan generated over 205,935 KSM, which equals about $45,000,000.

Moonriver now producing blocks on Kusama

In addition, Moonriver is now producing blocks on the Kusama network since it has secured the parachain slot. The network has started to gradually roll out its Ethereum-compatible smart contract platform.

Moonbeam founder, Derek Yoo, applauded the participation of all contributors towards the success of the Moonriver crowdloan. Yoo also acknowledged the effort of the network’s technology and ecosystem partners that supported the development. Specifically, he mentioned Parity, Web3 Foundation, Moonbeam’s collator community, and ambassadors.

The Moonbeam founder continued:

As Moonriver completes its launch sequence and enables full functionality in the coming weeks, we look forward to supporting all our ecosystem partners who plan to deploy to the network.

Furthermore, Moonbeam revealed in the announcement that Moonriver could obtain the parachain slot on Kusama by winning a bid in an auction. After winning the bid, Moonriver launched to the network and began to produce blocks at 11:30 UTC on the 29th of June. The initial launch marks the first phase of the launch. Eventually, the network will introduce more functions for the stability of the network. Currently, the Moonriver network is in Phase 0, and each phase will take up to two weeks to complete. At the end of the four phases of the launch process, users will be able to enjoy the full functionality of the network with balance transfers enabled.

Moonriver launch process

According to the Moonbeam team, Phase 0 (centralized) launches the genesis launch and centralization of the network. Phase 1 (delegated proof of stake) is when third-party collators will integrate the network once it is stable. During phase 2 (governance), the Moonbeam team will issue a runtime upgrade and enable governance. At Phase 3 (removal of Sudo), the Sudo key which gives Moonbeam control will be removed, and token holders will assume control of the network. Finally, Phase 4 (full launch) is the most important step of the whole process. At this state, balance transfers and the EVM will be enabled. Some of the functions that developers and end-users will have access to include the ability to transfer funds. Others are the ability to participate in the Moonriver staking system, deploy smart contracts, and also claim crowdloan participation rewards.

Upon completing Phase 4, projects on Moonbase Alpha, the Moonbeam TestNet will begin their deployment to Moonriver.

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