Polkadot

DOT holders can:

• Act as a validator, collator, nominator or fisherman.
• Participate in the governance of Polkadot.
• Make bids for block inclusion as a collator for a parathread.
• Participate in decisions on global upgrades and changes to Polkadot.
  

DOT serves three key functions in Polkadot: governance, network operation and parachain creation through bonding.
1. Governance: DOT holders have full control over the platform, including setting network fees, funding projects, and exceptional events such as network upgrades. Governance decisions are embedded in Polkadot’s code, enabling direct participation.

2. Network Operation: DOT facilitates Polkadot’s consensus mechanism. By staking or bonding DOT, holders help validate transactions and maintain network security.

3. Buy Coretime: To create new parachains, DOT must be bonded. These DOT are locked and are released once the parachain is removed.

Supply: Polkadot has an available supply of nearly 1.5 billion DOT tokens.

Inflation: Polkadot uses DOT rewards to incentivize participation and security. On the Polkadot network, inflation is set to be 10% annually. New DOT tokens are issued as rewards to validators and nominators, maintaining network security and encouraging network participation.