Bill Laboon informs that there are benefits to installing Polkadot{.js} extension to your browser, even if you are not using it to store DOT or KSM. For instance, it blocks any scam sites it knows about automatically.  If you find a scam site it doesn’t know about, please add it to the list so it blocks the site for others.

Further, the staking rate on Polkadot has decreased to 57.3%.

Kusama News:  There are now eight crowdloans running. Remember that this current batch of auctions will have four winners, one per week, which will all onboard at the start of the next lease period. 96_718 KSM has been locked so far in this set of crowdloans; altogether, ~ 2.46 million (~ 21.1% of total issuance) is locked for crowdloans or parachains.

Motion 385, a request from Calamari to upgrade their chain to a new runtime, has been passed and executed. There is an exhaustive post in this regard for more details.

Referendum 145, looking to increase the ideal number of validators in the active set by 100, is currently up for vote.

Community response:  It is Amazing to see DOT evolving to be more useful in the ecosystem. DOT is becoming more and more important in the crypto game.

Will it have proper Wallet functionality anytime soon.

For those who are wondering why Parachains are so cool Nick Garcia makes it clear: Polkadot parachain auctions are set to commence Nov. 11th.

Parachains are highly-customized and flexible L1 blockchains built with the Substrate SDK. Existing smart contract models tend to be overly general i.e. add and/or subtract. Substrate enables customization down to the use-case i.e. store this file.

Specialization allows for 1 instruction vs 100 small ones resulting in computational and economic efficiencies. It also enables parachains to be tailored to specific use-cases: Defi, EVM, gaming, NFTs privacy, oracles, etc. Parachains will be their own economies like legacy L1s.

Unlike legacy L1s, parachains will not be siloed. Instead, each parachain will connect with the L0 Polkadot. By connecting with Polkadot, a parachain receives the networks security, interoperability, and governance.

However, Polkadot has a limit of ~100 parachain slots, so access to its benefits come at a cost. Aspiring parachains must compete in parachain slot auctions to access Polkadot The auctions are candle-style and entail raising DOT from the community in exchange for native tokens.

So, parachains are the 100 winning use-case specific L1 blockchains connected, secured, and governed by the L0.