Reporting about DOT! (April 28th to May 4th)

What is up, my friends!

Did you manage to catch The Gray Paper interview?

It was just a couple weeks back when we mentioned in our weekly newsletter that it will take some time to understand the Gray Paper. In any case you’d think Gavun wud recommend watching it, and of course in between a dose of airdrop hunting.

Those who have watched it will get to see the real Gavin Wood up close, revealing his thinking behind the Jam Gray Paper, which serves as the blueprint for building the World Computer. Additionally, the top notch production and reporting by Key Pictures and The Kusamarian deserves praise.

Although timeframes for JAM are not set in stone, Gavin estimates we may have something by the end of the year. Furthermore, if the estimated timeframe is met, it’s expected that JAM will be significantly more powerful than what is currently available today.

Moving on, or rather, back to last week, we reported on the LAOS treasury’s second bounty. Now that they’ve won a slot despite facing issues, we anticipate changes. Perhaps it would be a good idea to read our special profile report on LAOS Network in this week’s edition, which might help when an update to the bounty is announced.

On a weekly basis the WagMedia newsletter aims to report the latest news and updates, and through our community writers you get to read captivating stories about our ecosystem. That said, when it comes to external sources, what sort of reporting do we get?

Thus, this week’s top story uncovers Messari’s Q1 report on Polkadot, and for good measure we will also include some significant core news from the week.

As per usual you can also catch up with the latest updates in the news sections, which has been summarized by our top finders.

Without further delay, sit back, relax, grab a glass (if you want), and enjoy another weekly dose of reporting about DOT!

Dodow, Chief Editor

Top Story of the Week - Dot’s in the report?

Written by yay.oi

Hey QTs! I hope you’re having a great Q2. This week we’re turning back the clocks to take a deeper look at Q1. With the volatile nature of the crypto market, it’s easy to get caught up in the moment. Don’t forget to take the time to zoom out once in a while, as you might like what you see.

Our State of Polkadot Q1 2024 report comes from none other than Messari. In case you haven’t heard of them, they’re aiming to become the Bloomberg of crypto. Essentially, they’re a crypto-analytic platform that publishes numerous publications with a very wide reach.

Messari’s publications have over 200,000 subscribers, making them one of the most read crypto publishers in the world. Their X account has over 350,000 followers, gaining more than 50 million impressions per month.

With figures like this it’s not surprising that over 100 Layer 1, DAO, and Defi projects have enlisted Messari to publish their quarterly financial reporting. They include big names such as Solana, Uniswap, and of course Polkadot.

Messari first approached Polkadot in December 2021 with a Gov1 proposal to deliver 4 quarterly reports and 1 ecosystem report at a cost of USD $125k. The Polkadot community approved two renewals of the arrangement with Messari, most recently with OpenGov Referendum #732 for USD $120k.

The report for Q1 2024 starts with some key metrics. Polkadot’s market cap rose by 16% in Q1 to USD $12.6B ranking it at 16th place in global cryptocurrencies (including stablecoins).

Compared to the previous quarter, revenue fell 91% to USD $241k. However, this drop was not unexpected because there was an enormous spike in revenue in Q4 from inscriptions on Polkadot. If compared to Q3 2023, we can see that USD revenue is up by 249%.

Treasury funds of DOT dropped by 16% to 37M (or 5.3% in USD). With the passing of Referendum #457, the treasury will be diversifying into stablecoins over the next year, with the aim of converting 3.4M DOT into equal amounts of USDC and USDT.

With this change, it will be possible for treasury proposals to be requested in stablecoins. Hopefully this means the end to secondary top-up proposals due to shifts in the price of DOT.

The streamlining of governance proposals couldn’t have come at a better time because OpenGov activity is on the rise. The number of referenda, direct voters, and delegators have risen consistently for the last three quarters.

The developer base in Polkadot is very healthy too. In fact, with an average of almost 2100 developers as of December 2023, Polkadot continues to be placed second behind Ethereum.

Moonbeam may be using a large portion of those developers, as they had the leading number of monthly active addresses (an 110% increase to 217,000), and also saw the largest rise in parachain transactions (71%). However, despite a modest increase of 3%, Phala still retained the top spot for the highest number of parachain transactions.

According to the Messari report, the most notable advancements of Q1 were the introduction of JAM, Referendum #457, and the integration of IBC with Picasso. The things we should be looking forward to are Agile Coretime, On-Demand Parachains, and Elastic Scaling.

Publications with crypto-analytic powerhouses such as Messari are sure to generate numerous impressions within the crypto-economic community, but a new campaign in New York City is about to generate a lot of impressions with the general public.

Thanks to the passing of Referendum #656, Polkadot advertisements will be visible atop the famous NYC yellow cabs for a three month period. This campaign alone is expected to generate 20M+ visual impressions, but there’s more.

For the duration of the campaign, NYC Lyft users will see clickable in-app Polkadot advertisements. With more than 150k riders per day it is likely to generate an additional 15M impressions. The icing on the cake is that this campaign coincides with numerous crypto and finance conferences such as the Blockchain Tech Summit and the Coinbase: State of Crypto Summit.

Impressions are great, but onboarding new users is even better, as Moonpay has just made buying DOT a whole lot easier, especially for users in the US. Paypal’s integration solves numerous issues, furthermore, it opens the door to its 426M users around the world.

It’s unfortunate that Moonpay doesn’t support KSM yet because this week Coretime sales went live on Kusama. Three cores were put up for sale with a starting price of 25 KSM, and a plan to linearly decrease the price over seven days until it reached 5 KSM.

Of course no one waited that long, since all three cores were snapped up early with an average price of 23.4 KSM. The Lastic and RegionX Coretime marketplaces are expected to open secondary markets soon, meaning that projects that don’t require a whole core can purchase as much or little coretime as they need.

Wrapping up DOTs in the report, many in the community would agree with the Messari report that Agile Coretime is a big upcoming development. However, while Snowbridge and Hyperbridge were mentioned briefly, it was surprising that they were not given the same recognition.

Readers often view reports written by impartial outsiders as having more credibility, appreciating the lack of marketing speak, and overinflated promises. However, an outsider may not be able to provide the insights that a member of the community would.

There seems to be some omissions in Messari’s reporting. The Phala parachain launched in 2022, but in the Messari report their ecosystem transactions only appear to be logged from May 2023. Perhaps Phala was placed in the other category, or could it have been there was no reporting on canary chains which might have missed the possible transition from Khala.

The report consistently justified abnormal statistical swings caused by the spike in inscriptions in Q4. However, in the closing summary they failed to attribute Manta’s leading increase in parachain addresses to their token genesis event.

Despite Messari failing to disclose that this report was paid for by the Polkadot treasury, it was, and it cost USD $30k. At that price, we deserve to view things more critically. Are we paying for a quality publication with a wide reach, or just for the latter?

What do you think, did we get what we paid for? Messari invites you to report omissions and feedback here, furthermore, many of us are watching!

The LAOS Report

Written by Sanchez

The economy of most NFTs relies heavily on scarcity and speculation to boost sales and prices. Projects use FOMO and hype to drive these elements, ultimately encouraging users to buy their NFTs.

Although functional in today's markets, the dependency on scarcity to boost the financials of NFT projects limits utilities developers can build, as projects focus more on utilities that enforce scarcity.

The NFT economy is also marred by scalability problems, risks of mutability and centralization posed by the storage of NFT metadata on private company servers, and the issues of accessibility and the dangers that come with bridges.

Here is where LAOS Network, a Layer 1 parachain secured on Polkadot, which recently won the 68th parachain auction, comes into the picture. LAOS aims to be the consensus system which other chains can utilize to scale their digital asset economy.

Not only are NFTs generated on LAOS are decentralized, non-custodial, and secure, the protocol also enables the scaling of NFT minting externally on EVM and non-EVM chains. It achieves this with features such as low cost of minting assets, bridgeless minting, assets interoperability, and up to 1 million transactions per second.

In order to power the bridgeless minting process, LAOS utilizes Universal Location, which is a part of Polkadot’s Cross Chain Messaging (XCM) pattern. It is responsible for the connection of smart contracts in different blockchains to assets or accounts on Polkadot.

NFTs minted on LAOS can be connected to the smart contracts created on Ethereum, Polygon, and other EVM and non-EVM chains. As such, holders can freely trade these NFTs minted on LAOS on Opensea and other marketplaces on these chains.

The LAOS parachain utilizing XCM also trustlessly communicates and transfers assets with other chains on Polkadot. EVM chains like Moonbeam and Astar can also utilize LAOS for their NFT minting needs, and in turn offer an easy path of NFT interoperability with the likes of Ethereum and Polygon.

The LAOS parachain benefits from the shared security of the Polkadot Network as it is connected to the Polkadot Relay chain. The parachain itself houses the LAOS Relay Chain (similar to the Polkadot Relay Chain), and this provides security for the Evochains (similar to parachains), which is where the minting of NFTs of the ERC721/1155 standard occurs.

With the idea of fostering an NFT economy of abundance where NFTs are cheaply available, the value of an NFT would depend on User Generated Value (UGV) impacted through users on-chain and off-chain actions. The team aims to push this new economy by offering bridgeless minting and interoperability of ERC721/1155 NFTs to smart-contract-supported EVM and non-EVM chains, which might benefit from negligible fees.

The idea is to move developers and users away from the traditional perspective of scarcity of assets by presenting a lower barrier of entry, allowing more users to participate, and enabling developers to build suitable economies that reward participation.

NFTs minted on LAOS can be easily verified on-chain and the metadata spread across more chains, enabling the interoperability of these assets across diverse chains. LAOS also provides copyright protection for NFTs, meaning these NFTs cannot be reproduced on another chain.

It can be a compelling proposition for NFT marketplaces that provide minting services. As now they can take advantage of cost efficient minting on multiple chains, while effectively abstracting the minting process to LAOS.

LAOS will also replace the Living Assets Layer 2 project built by Freeverse, and will inherit already running projects and those being built. It will also inherit its customizable marketplace, which highlights an NFTs evolution, fiat payment gateways, and more.

When it comes to the LAOS token, when staked, it provides security for the Evochains in a similar way as staked DOT provides security for Polkadot parachains. In addition to validators and delegators participating and receiving staking rewards, the token is also used for payment of minting or any other transaction fees, and for governance.

With an initial supply of 1 billion tokens at inception, the LAOS token will have a 10% inflation starting in the third year. The inflation will primarily cater to staking rewards and will be subject to approval by governance. 35% of the token supply is set out as incentives for usage and engagement of the network, marketing, and grants for builders.

The LAOS Network effectively looks to change how users and developers perceive NFTs and foster the growth and development of NFTs with its solutions. However, the growth of the LAOS Network will greatly depend on the integrations they develop in the NFT ecosystem.

Users can already mint assets on Ethereum and Polygon using the LAOS testnet on Kusama, intended only for testing purposes. Users receive KLAOS (possess no monetary value) from the faucet, mint NFTs on their preferred chain and can put them up for sale on Opensea.

The LAOS Network will soon begin onboarding their parachain on Polkadot, with the launch of bridgeless minting and other available features expected shortly after that. It’s going to be interesting to see how the LAOS approach is adopted. Our finders, creators, and the writing teams at Wag will be on hand to report the progress. Follow us to learn how it unfolds

General News

Written by Turing Machine

• US PayPal users can now purchase DOT and other cryptocurrencies through MoonPay.
• Nick Garcia from Messari published the State of Polkadot Q1 2024. It contains metrics and analysis that show significant growth in recent months, and includes extrinsic volume, daily active addresses, daily XCM (+560% YoY), and more.
• KILT on HydraDX is now supported by Nova wallet, furthermore, the token is also available in Nova's swap feature.
• Tanssi announced a collaboration with RWA tokenization and SaaS platform Sonica.
• Dr. Gavin Wood's presentation from TOKEN2049: “The Big JAM” is finally available on YouTube.
• Coretime sales have started on Kusama and can now be bought both on Lastic and RegionX.
• Moralis integrates Moonbeam and is now available through their API to build dApps or add Moonbeam support to existing implementations.
• Talisman expands wallet integrations outside of Polkadot and now supports the Analog Testnet. Accumulate points and hunt for airdrops in the broader web3 landscape.
• The ISMP SDK has been published on crates.io by the Polytope’s team; the substrate pallets can now be integrated to enable chain interoperability, through secure message passing on Paseo testnet.
• OriginTrail’s TRAC token can now be delegated for staking on its NeuroWebAI parachain via their user friendly staking dashboard.
• Litentry rounds up season 1 of Identity Hub with over 170K credentials created and 100K views on the hub from over 25K unique visitors.
• Subwallet released a product update, which includes, support for more browsers, Ledger connection to Polkadot and Kusama Asset-Hub, support for new tokens, and more
• Peaq will be launching its token sale with CoinList soon, and please be aware that participation is not available to US and CA residents.
• Cross-chain transfers of KILT between the KILT parachain and HydraDX are now enabled on NovaWallet.

NFT News

Written by Turing Machine

• In a shocking twist to their failed crowdloan, LAOS self-funded an auction and won slot #68 with a mere 100 DOT!
• Pixudi, who focuses on bringing web2 gaming to web3, are launching a testnet on Tanssi.
• NovaWallet now supports Mythos Network, you'd be able to play NFL Rivals and access your tokens on the go.
• Dotachain and Dotaswap are now live on the Tanssi testnet, participants can earn Tanssi and DOTA rewards.
• Bitcountry released a May Development Report, covering the progress they have made during April. Key updates included dApp improvement for multichain, wallet integrations, implementation of AIPixel Quests, and more.
• WUD memecoin is now supported on NovaWallet.
• Polkadot also has its own mascot dog now. Could it be a Dalmatian? WIFD memecoin has appeared, and it’s literally just a dog wif dots.
• The latest memecoin comes with the appearance of a cute pirate, but be careful because Bandit the Cat (BNDT) might scratch.

DEFI News

Written by Turing Machine

• Bifrost’s latest monthly report provides an update on their roadmap and a Grants Program to build the future of LSTfi.
• Bifrost has achieved another important milestone with staked vDOT hitting 10 million.
• CRU, NODL, UNQ, and USDT (Moonbeam Wormhole) tokens on HydraDX are now supported on NovaWallet.
• Beamswap’s Q1 report celebrates 2 years of shipping. Notable highlights include: achieving strong trading volume, improved UX, and standout features include lottery and yield boosters.
• You can now track key metrics on StellaSwap from the Dune dashboard, which includes trading volumes, pools information, number of user accounts, and more.
• Another memecoin has found its way onto Moonbeam, as Stink is now tradable on StellaSwap.
• After winning the 4th and 6th voting rounds of the StellaSwap monthly farm boost programme, the iBTC.xc-DOT.xc pool becomes the first pool to be boosted twice.

Governance & Events News

Written by Turing Machine

• An OpenGov proposal has been submitted to open HRMP channels between SORA parachain and Asset-Hub.
• With the passing of Referendum #656 for three months, Polkadot ads will be displayed on digital screens on top of New York yellow taxis. Additionally, Polkadot ads will be appearing in the Lyft app for the duration of the campaign.
• Crust hosted HydraDX on April 29th to discuss the DEX landscape in the Polkadot ecosystem.
• On May 2nd Crust Core Dev Brian Wu gave an overview about Web3 storage and IPFS using Crust Network.
• Polkaworld's Kirsten hosted a spaces on 30th of April, with guests Filippo Franchini, Alice und Bob, and Acala's Bryan Chen, to discuss about JAM Chain.
• Filippo Franchini hosted Adrian Keet and IGP Rahman Desyanta of Mandala Chain on May 2nd. They covered their recent Ref. #720 proposal to showcase Polkadot at Coinfest Asia 2024, and how they're facilitating the adoption by the Indonesian government.
• InvArch’s Ambassador cr0nD shared all of the latest updates at the bi-weekly Community Space on 3rd May.
• In the latest installment of the Royal Round Table on May 6th,Kingdom Ventures hosted Flavio Bianchi of Polimec to discuss their decentralized approach to VC investing.
• Dr. Gavin Wood is set to make his first university presentation of the JAM Gray Paper at UBA in Argentina on next May 10th.
• Scytale's Christoph Kampitsch will be hosting Smash Ball, Evrloot, and Forest Knight, the top three teams from the Mythical x Scytale Gaming Academy, for a panel discussion about the Polkadot gaming ecosystem on May 8th.
• Polkadot Arena will represent the Polkadot community with a stand at Rome Blockchain week 2024 on 30-31 of May. Event speakers include Luca Poggi (Iceberg Nodes), Filippo Franchini (W3F), Irina Karagyaur, Patrizia De Bella (both Polkadot HA), Alessandro De Carli (CEO Acurast) and Christian Vinciguerra (from Bifrost).

That is all for this week. If you enjoyed the newsletter, please share it. You can subscribe on Substack to receive an email when next week's edition is ready. And if you're participating in creator staking on Subsocial, you can interact to increase your rewards — perhaps a good two-for-one deal by providing feedback or comments.

Awesome cover art created by Dodow.