Polkadot at $1.006: a year of new DOT equals a fifth of one trading day

The facts: Polkadot trades at $1.006, or 0.899 euros, on Monday evening, October 26, down 3.3 percent in 24 hours (CoinGecko data, as of 18:52 UTC). Our assessment follows further down: the supply cap agreed in March is too small to carry the day-to-day price.

That leaves the price at a round number which last mattered in September. If you hold DOT, the long-term picture is in our Polkadot overview; this piece takes apart today's state of play and names the levels that count now.

Polkadot at the $1 mark: Monday evening's numbers

The day's range ran from $1.003 to $1.039. Tokens worth around $126.7 million changed hands over the past 24 hours. Market capitalization stands at about $1.72 billion, rank 57 among all crypto assets.

Over seven days DOT is down 11.9 percent, over 30 days 20.3 percent, over twelve months 68.2 percent. For comparison, bitcoin gave up 0.7 percent over the same 24 hours and stood at $80,024, while ethereum lost 1.6 percent to $2,315. DOT is falling roughly four times as hard as bitcoin this Monday.

The intraday low of $1.003 is the lowest level since September 16. DOT closed at $0.944 back then, and that was the last daily close beneath the round number. There have been 40 trading days above a dollar since, the most recent of them today, though only just.

Five straight losing sessions: what has changed since October 23

On October 23 we wrote here about the rebuild of the relay chain towards JAM. DOT closed at $1.1113 that day. The price has shed 9.5 percent since then, with nothing changed in the technical picture.

Last week's daily closes form an unbroken run lower: October 21 at $1.1505, October 22 at $1.1442, October 23 at $1.1113, October 24 at $1.0847, October 25 at $1.048, today at $1.006. Five trading days, each below the one before, a decline of 12.6 percent in total.

Part of that has a nameable cause. On October 21 the Polkadot Community Foundation warned about four tampered browser versions of Fearless Wallet, from which 17,286 DOT drained according to the foundation. We described the key leak at Fearless Wallet in detail at the time. The sum itself is too small to explain a slump in the price: at today's level, 17,286 DOT comes to around $17,400, or 0.014 percent of daily turnover. Trust is what moves the price here, not the quantity.

The 2.1 billion DOT supply cap and what it really slows

Polkadot changed its issuance model in March this year. Referendum 1710 replaced the fixed annual issuance with a stepped plan: every two years, 13.14 percent of the remaining gap to the ceiling of 2.1 billion DOT is issued anew, and the first step fell on March 14, 2026. That is how the official Polkadot wiki describes it. We reported on the hard ceiling at length on October 17, when only 392 million DOT could still come into existence.

Issuance schedule means the timetable on which new tokens are created. With bitcoin that is the halving, which halves issuance every four years. Polkadot pays out a fixed percentage of the remaining gap instead, so the annual quantity shrinks of its own accord.

How a cut in issuance reaches the price: the mechanism in three sentences

A cut in supply works through the ratio of new supply to current demand. If fewer new tokens reach the market each day, less buying power is needed for the price to hold. What decides that is not the ceiling as a number but the quantity actually created per day.

The calculation can be laid out. 1.709 billion DOT are in circulation, so the gap to the ceiling runs to around 391 million. 13.14 percent of that works out at about 51.4 million DOT for the two-year step, or roughly 25.7 million DOT a year. At $1.006 that is just under $25.9 million of new supply a year.

Set against it is daily turnover of $126.7 million. A whole year of new issuance therefore amounts to about a fifth of what changes hands on a single Monday. Cutting that quantity cannot hold the price against a wave of selling; it works over years, not weeks. That is precisely what the chart has shown since March.

The vote on Kusama on JAM Prime and the November 3 deadline

One date sits in the calendar, and it concerns DOT directly. On October 19 the group of authors around forum member Emielsebastiaan put four wish-for-change proposals for Kusama, the testnet with a real market value, to the Polkadot forum. Each proposal offers 40 coretime years but differs in the number of guaranteed cores: eight cores for five years, six cores for six years and eight months, four cores for ten years, two cores for twenty years. The paper names November 3, 2026 as the closing date.

One number is on the table for DOT holders. The funding is to be settled in DOT, with a negotiating basis of $4,320,000 and a ceiling of 5,000,000 DOT from the Kusama Vision Fund. Should one of the four variants fail, the result passes on to the DOT DAO through a proposal, according to the paper.

The proposals are forum papers so far. A query of Kusama referenda 671 to 674 through SubSquare returned no entry on Monday evening, so the votes had not been submitted at that point. To follow the deadline, watch the referenda list from this week on, not the forum.

Our assessment: the cap only counts once demand picks up

In the editorial team's view the supply cap is a sound decision carrying the wrong weight of expectation. The calculation above argues for that reading: $25.9 million of new supply a year against $126.7 million of turnover in a single day. So does the price since the first step on March 14, over which DOT has lost 68.2 percent on a twelve-month view. A rule about quantity is no substitute for demand.

The time axis argues the other way. The effect of such a plan adds up over several two-year steps, and the second stage is not due until March 2028. Hold DOT with a horizon of years and you are buying a scarcity that does not bite yet. Count in weeks and it will not be delivered. This is an assessment of the situation and not a recommendation to buy or sell; with crypto assets a total loss is possible.

What 28 days of lock-up in DOT staking mean now

Stake DOT and the tokens are not within reach straight away. The unbonding period on the Polkadot network runs to 28 days; only after that are the tokens transferable again. We worked through the yield and the lock-up on October 11, at 2.77 percent a year at the time.

On a day like today that period is the real decision. Unbond now and the earliest sale is November 23, and nobody knows where the price will stand then. Stay staked and the price risk runs on, but the yield sits above what a savings account leaves once inflation is deducted. Our comparison of staking platforms gives an overview of providers and terms.

On Wednesday, October 28, the US Federal Reserve decides on its key rate at 19:00 German time. That date falls in the middle of the 28 days if the unbonding starts today. It is not an argument against unbonding, but it is one for choosing the order deliberately.

Holding period and loss offsetting with DOT in the red

For investors in Germany, crypto assets held privately fall under the one-year holding period in Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. Hold DOT for longer than a year and the sale is tax-free, whatever the size of the gain. Sell within the year and the gain is taxed at your personal rate once the total of all private disposals in a year exceeds the threshold of 1,000 euros.

Loss offsetting means that losses from private disposals can be set against gains of the same kind, in the same year or carried forward into later years. With DOT down 68.2 percent over twelve months, that is the part which matters in practice for many portfolios.

The catch lies in the sequence. A loss from a sale after more than a year cannot be used for tax, because the transaction falls outside the period. To realize losses, then, check the acquisition date of each individual position first. The FIFO rule requires that the tokens bought first count as the ones sold first. Which tools read that out automatically is in our comparison of tax tools.

Levels above and below: $0.94 and the all-time low

Below, the next orientation is the daily close of September 16 at $0.944, around 6.2 percent under today's level. Beneath that follows the all-time low of August 18 at $0.727, a distance of 27.8 percent. No other notable close of the past 90 days sits between the two.

Above, yesterday's close at $1.048 counts first, then that of October 23 at $1.1113. The high of the past 90 days dates from September 28 and sits at $1.2677; DOT is 20.6 percent away from it today. These levels are reference points taken from the price history, not a forecast.

To buy DOT or shift holdings, the terms of the large venues are in our exchange comparison. With daily turnover of $126.7 million across all venues, the spread plays a measurable part in larger orders.

DOT at $1.00: without fresh demand the cap stays theory

Three steps follow from the situation:

1. Look up the acquisition date of every DOT position. If the purchase is less than a year old, a loss can be used for tax; after that it cannot. A tax tool reads this out of the transaction data.
2. Allow for the 28 days in staking. An unbonding started today ends on November 23, with the Fed date on October 28 in between. Current terms are in the staking comparison.
3. Mark November 3 in the calendar. The deadline on the four Kusama proposals runs out that day, with up to 5 million DOT of funding on the table.

(As of October 26, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)