Kusama (KSM) soars 8% after a bullish token unlock

As the markets continue to trade sideways, investors seem to be taking advantage of the recent Kusama (KSM) token unlock to purchase more tokens.

KSM is a native token for the Kusama network.

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At the time of writing, KSM was trading at $77.20, up 8.33% after dropping from a daily high of $84.69.

Massive token unlocks

After almost one year, all the 1.1 million KSM tokens that had been contributed to the first five auctions by the holder have been unlocked and distributed back to the participants. However, some critics had predicted a drop in the token price due to the influx of KSM tokens which they said could add selling pressure on the token.

Despite all that, other tokens from parachain winners have also experienced a value increase like KAR, Karura’s native token soared by 8.29%, and MOVR by 8.49% trading at the time of writing.

Following the conclusion of the first Kusama parachain auctions round, the Polkadot ecosystem has shown the crowdloan model is an effective way of bootstrapping projects. Parachain winners like Shiden and Moonriver have already received new parachain leases by either winning a second auction or through direct purchase.

About Kusama

Kusama is part of the Polkadot ecosystem and acts as a canary network where projects test their applications in a live event. Last year June, Kusama launched the first parachain auctions enabling its token holders to lend their tokens in favor of the promising projects.

All the projects that received the token contributions got a one-year slot on one of the Kusama network parachain. The holders who contributed to one of the Kusama network parachain were expected to receive their tokens back at the end of the lease with the addition of weekly tokens distributed throughout the lease period.

The first project to win a parachain was Karura, on June 22, then Moonriver, Khala, Shiden, and Bitfrost Finance.