Following the procurement of an additional parachain slot in MarchGo to page https://moonbeam.network/news/moonriver-secures-a-parachain-slot-on-kusama, Moonriver has been successfully swapped to its new slot, where it is now continuing to produce blocks. This was achieved with no interruption or network downtime.
Notably, the Moonbeam Foundation was able to finance this slot through a direct bid, which allows existing MOVR reserves to be directed to grants and other initiatives that support the community.
The new slot for leases 20-27 will allow Moonriver to continue to operate as a parachain on the Kusama network through next year, until March 2023 when the lease ends and a new slot will need to be obtained.
The new lease and shift to the new parachain slot have no impact on the Moonriver 2021 crowdloan. Rewards will continue to be paid out until the original lease ends, on approximately May 14 or 15, 2022. At that point, the Moonbeam Foundation will issue a batch call on behalf of contributors, effectively releasing their KSM back to their original wallet without needing to be formally “claimed.”
Since the network was moved with its parachain ID (2023) to the new slot, the parachain ID used to obtain the second slot (2112) now occupies the old lease. Moonriver will continue to be referenced by the parachain ID 2023 on a go-forward basis to minimize changes for users and developers.