Proposal for First Parachain Auctions on Polkadot

Proposal for First Parachain Auctions on Polkadot

This is a proposal to schedule the first set of parachain auctions on Polkadot as well as get
Council buy-in to a recommended strategy for scheduling auctions on a 3-6 month basis.

Based on the performance of parachains on Kusama and the state of audits, the Parity engineering
team believes that the code for parachains, auctions, and crowdloans is ready for an initial
production release.

This motion proposes two batches of auctions:

• The first: five auctions, starting 11 Nov, seven days each, beginning every seven days, for
  lease periods 6-13 (LP6 is slated to begin 15 Dec)
• The second: six auctions, starting 23 Dec, seven days each, beginning every 14 days, for
  lease periods 7-14 (LP7 is slated to begin 09 Mar 2022)

As auctions can take place prior to a lease period starting, this motion schedules auctions to
begin around mid-day (UTC) of 11 November.

In order to ensure stability guarantees, I suggest along with this proposal that the Council and
network governance limit the number of parachain slots on Polkadot to 75% of that on Kusama. This
initial schedule will last until early March; as the network grows the Council can suggest an
updated auction cadence to stay within a reasonable factor of safety relative to the number of
parachains on Kusama.