The crypto gods seem to be smiling down on DOT holders this week judging by the cryptocurrency’s bullish performance and the latest update which has major positive impacts on staking.

Polkadot’s latest update reduced the minimum staking requirement from 300 DOT to 1 DOT. This is a major win to anyone planning to earn passively by staking their DOT holding because it reduces the friction of entry, making it easier for more people to participate. To put it into perspective, the previous 300 DOT minimum threshold meant that users had to spend more than $7200 to purchase enough DOT to participate at the prevailing market price. After the update, the minimum threshold is just above $24.

The latest update also eliminates the need to go through intermediaries who are usually centralized platforms that facilitate stake-as-a-service. Instead, participants can now stake their coins directly on the Polkadot network, which means the staking process is now more streamlined. Polkadot uses a Nominated Proof-of-Stake (NPoS) that uses nominators and validators to boost security on its blockchain network.

The update makes Polkadot one of the most accommodative networks available to anyone that wants to get into making money through staking. It is no coincident considering that Proof-Of-Stake is now gaining popularity as a more efficient approach. The move is aimed at encouraging more people to participate in the network.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin stated that community participation is one of the best ways to make a proof-of-stake network less prone to attacks. Encouraging more participation through a lower staking threshold will also allow Polkadot to advance its scaling and multichain interoperability to overcome network bottlenecks.

Polkadot is still in a position to leverage growth especially as blockchain adoption continues to rapidly increase. Its capacity to facilitate interchain operability will gain demand over time, leading to more demand for its services, thus more traffic. Adequate preparedness for those changes is essential especially now that the market is still in its early stages.

The latest update had a positive impact on the price of DOT, the native token on the Polkadot network. Its price is currently trading at $24.41 after a 10.37% gain in the last 24 hours, meaning the update has been positively received.

DOT has already recovered substantially from its May lows of around $13. Perhaps the Polkadot update was the trigger that the price needed to gather bullish momentum after coming off the recent bearish downturn that prevailed for the last two weeks. The price correction pulled the price down from its all-time high of $49.78, and while this might seem unfortunate for hodlers, it means the discounted price is a good entry point especially for those that want to get into staking.

While the recent Polkadot update provides a stepping stone for DOT bulls to resume their rally, there are numerous other factors that may facilitate an even stronger recovery for the cryptocurrency. The overall cryptocurrency market seems to be recovering and regaining its bullish momentum, which means DOT will have less headwinds on its climb. However, other developments on the network will likely have a larger impact on the price action.

Polkadot is rapidly approaching the rollout of its individual layer-1 blockchains known as parachains on Kusama. The parachains are currently in the testing and optimization phase, which means they might go live in the next few weeks or months. Most of these developments are aimed at making sure that Polkadot will have the right infrastructure to cope with the growing demand for decentralized finance capacity on its network.