DOT’s Happy CNY! - Newsletter Edition 84

In this week’s edition:

1. Editorial: Celebration vibes, Polkadot’s Chinese Community, and Chinese Community Content.
2. Top Story - Celebrating DOT Chinese Community: how the Chinese Community is shaping the Polkadot ecosystem.
3. Featured Report - Recognising DOT Chinese Content: Show appreciation for our Chinese community of creators.
4. Wag Roundup: News from our Finders Program between January 23rd and January 29th.
5. Extras: Credits and anything else.

Editorial

What is up, my friends!

Happy Chinese New Year (CNY) to all those who celebrate it around the world! While last week we shared some Presidot takes on what happened in and around the inauguration, there was certainly more that followed, worth celebrating. In some cases, it might even be worth yapping about.

The pro-crypto presidential actions that followed included a compelling executive order, a favourable appointment, a positive rescindment, and more. However, heading into the weekend and starting the week, markets have turned deep into the red, and some now seek salvation.

Perhaps it’s a good reminder to Web3 natives of the global inclusivity and profound impact that comes with open-source disruptive technology. Polkadot has long been at the forefront of embracing an inclusive ethos around the world. As such, it has established a strong contingent of developers in the China region.

In fitting with the Lunar New Year festivities, our top story this week celebrates the endeavors of the Chinese community within the Polkadot ecosystem. We will also showcase Chinese content in our featured report to raise awareness of those working to tell Polkadot’s story in one of the most prominent languages.

On that note Gong Hei Fat Choi, Gong Xi Fa Cai, Chuc Mung Nam Moi, Selamat Tahun Baru Imlek, Saehae Bok Mani Badeuseyo, Sawasdee Pee Mai, Manigong Bagong Taon, Selamat Tahun Baru Cina, and Xin Nian Kuai Le. Wishing you all prosperity, good health, and joy in the year ahead.

Dodow, Chief Editor

Top Story of the Week - Celebrating DOT Chinese Community

Written by yay.oi

What’s crackin’, cobras? As the final Moonbeamof the lunar year puts the dragon to rest, the new moon awakens the year of the WUD Snake. It’s a year characterized by the themes of deepening connections, transformation, and strategic growth.

Recent developments have resulted in a push for deeper connections in the US. However, let’s not forget our special relationship with the Sinosphere and the communities that have helped Polkadot to maintain a foothold in mainland China and beyond.

Gavin Wood recognized the potential of China from the early days of Polkadot, maintaining a home in Shanghai, and touring the region often. His efforts contributed to “fairly substantial” support from Chinese funds in the 2019 private token sale along with a growing community of supporters and developers in the region.

At the time, Chinese developers such as Phala’s Marvin Tong told Decrypt that the combination of Gavin Wood, Web3 Foundation, and Parity was able to offer unrivalled strategic funding and marketing support compared to other blockchains. By 2021, projects with Chinese teams made up the largest group of Web3 Foundation grant recipients, totalling 18.2%.

As recently as 2024, Polkadot retained the third-largest share of crypto developers in China. Initiatives such as OneBlock+, the oldest and largest blockchain developer community in China, play a role in growing and retaining this developer base through educational support, content, and regular Polkadot hackathons.

With such a significant level of developer support in the region it should come as no surprise that many of Polkadot’s earliest projects were initiated by Chinese founders. These projects played a crucial role in shaping the Polkadot ecosystem in its formative years. So let’s take a moment to look at a few, but this is by no means an exhaustive list of protocols.

Acala, the first parachain to launch on Polkadot, received significant support from the Web3 Foundation to get its decentralized stablecoin and trustless staking liquidity platform off the ground. A massive setback in 2022 tested the resilience of its developers and community.

To promote community and development in 2025, the team has put together a prize pool of around ~$400K for a monthly DApp building and Meme contest. This comes hot on the heels of the launch of Acala’s first memecoin NEMO, and a flurry of treasury proposals that may even see Acala with its own memepad and permissionless DEX.

This week, Acala announced its plans to integrate Snowbridge, the trustless bridge between Polkadot and Ethereum. This move brings Acala one step closer to realizing its ambition for its Euphrates platform to become a multichain LSTFi hub. It will unlock liquidity and yield opportunities for liquid staking tokens across Polkadot, Ethereum, L2s, and Solana.

Also focused on liquid staking tokens, the Bifrost story took a somewhat different trajectory. While it was amongst the first batch of Kusama parachains, its Polkadot parachain didn’t launch until mid-2022 after winning slot auction 18.

Bifrost offers an array of liquid staking tokens, with the most recent, vPHA, launching just this week. However, the biggest Bifrost waves are coming from a sudden increase in the minting of vDOT.

The probable cause of this spike in demand comes from the listing of vDOT as collateral in the Hydration Money Market on January 8th. By making use of the Bifrost founder approved loop strategy, users hit the vDOT supply cap in less than 24 hours.

Many were left wondering why Ben made the cap so low. Yet again misjudging the public’s voracious appetite, a 111,111 vDOT boost to the cap this week was chewed up in under 7 minutes. While they wait for Ben to get his act together, it seems Bifrost may be looking to tap into other lending markets.

Not all Chinese-led Polkadot projects revolve around liquid staking tokens. Trusted execution environments (TEE) are also a common feature. Litentry, founded by former Parity developer Hanwen Chen, uses TEE for preserving the privacy of digital identities.

Don’t get too attached to the name, though. Litentry is just about to undergo a rebrand to Heima Network. With the rebrand comes a new focus on chain abstraction and unified cross-chain asset management. You can, however, get attached to their cute new mascot, Otter.

With the otter memes rolling in, could this signal the launch of a new memecoin? If so, Litentry may soon have the perfect launchpad. It has teamed up with PumpX, offering its expertise in TEE and Secure Multi-Party Computation to help develop what they hope will be the safest decentralized memecoin exchange.

Recently a big player in the AI Agent memecoin hype, Phala’s multipurpose TEE-secured cloud compute network is increasingly focusing on AI use cases. Recent developments include TEE as a service and the launch of Phala Cloud.

Phala’s canary network Khala was in the first batch of Kusama parachains launched in June 2021, and now it has become the first of that batch to sunset. While this may feel like the end of an era, it marks a new multichain beginning for Phala as it seeks to expand its horizons.

Also no stranger to a multichain vision, Crust, launched on Polkadot in January 2023. It now claims to be one of the largest TEE-secured networks globally, offering over 700PB of decentralized distributed storage.

While Crust integrations now span multiple blockchains, with the latest being U2U, it is still deeply embedded in the Polkadot infrastructure and community. Crust makes regular appearances at Polkadot events and hackathons, and even organizes its own events, such as Hong Kong Polkadot and Friends co-hosted with Polkaport East and Bifrost.

Along with the support of the Web3 Foundation, community outreach groups such as the Hong Kong-based Polkaport East have helped solidify Polkadot’s presence in and around China. Funded by a Decentralized Futures grant, Polkaport East focuses on investor relations, business development, and community events in Hong Kong and mainland China.

While Polkaport East is relatively new, Polkaworld has been a pillar in the Chinese community since the very early days of Polkadot. After connecting with Gav in mid-2019, they ended up hosting his tour of China, and the first-ever Substrate hackathon, which featured teams from Acala and Bifrost.

For its first two years, Polkaworld was funded by the Web3 Foundation, subsequently tapping into the Kusama and Polkadot treasuries for operational costs. While Polkaworld initially built its Chinese-speaking community on WeChat, it has now expanded to X and YouTube, and also includes some English content such as this week’s Polkadot Roundtable panel.

When it comes to roundups, you may be familiar with the daily English updates from the Polkadot Ecology Research Institute (ERI). However, their specialty is long-form Chinese content. As a group focused more on research than community, the reach of their work primarily spreads through Chinese media outlets such as Chain Catcher, Web3Caff, Tuoluo, PA News, MarsBit, and ODaily.

Polkadot ERI has been operating since 2019, publishing more than 200 articles and generating over 60M views. Their work has been continuously funded by the Polkadot treasury over eight consecutive proposals.

On the other hand, one of the newest entrants from the Chinese-speaking community has recently struggled to renew funding from the Polkadot DAO. AIWeb3, led by DrCAO, is an offshoot from WagMedia that went solo after being funded by the Kusama DAO in early 2023.

AIWeb3’s main focus is community building through social platforms such as X, Telegram, and Discord. Along with its own Discord, it’s not uncommon to find members of AIWeb3 offering Chinese-language assistance on the Discords of other ecosystem projects.

In two years, it has grown its social following to 40K+ on X, 9.5K+ on Discord, and 3.3K+ on Telegram. In particular its X Spaces are very well received, such as the 2024 Polkadot roundup, which attracted more than 700 listeners.

As reported in OpenGov: A New Year, A Fresh Start!, with recent low voter turnout, treasury proposals are effectively being decided by Decentralized Voices (DV) delegates. Some suggested that AIWeb3’s funding is within the scope of the Marketing Bounty. With Polkaworld and Polkadot ERI also due for refunding in Q1 we will soon see if this is the DAO’s funding preference for all Chinese outreach.

While China has not yet revealed its hand in response to cryptocurrency policy reform in the US, its concentrated power structure allows for rapid policy shifts. Furthermore, Western media reports of a total crypto ban in China may not accurately represent the current situation. Despite higher barriers to entry for the average citizen, the world’s second most populous country still has an abundance of investors and developers who may be showing renewed interest in Polkadot.

The value of outreach to the Chinese mainland should not be underestimated, nor should it be forgotten that the Chinese speaking community stretches well beyond China’s borders. Gavin Wood recognized the potential and laid foundations in the Chinese community early on. The power to build upon that now rests with the Polkadot DAO.

As we celebrate the achievements of the DOT Chinese community, it is worth considering that the master JAMof the World Computer would inevitably embrace all languages and cultures.

Featured Report - Recognising DOT Chinese Content

Written by Dodow in collaboration with AIWeb3

Chinese is one of the world’s most prominent languages, spoken by over a billion people. While many within the Chinese community can understand English, true connection goes beyond translation. Cultural nuances and social impact can sometimes only be unlocked by conveying the language of the Middle Kingdom.

When it comes to Web3, one community literally stands out for its love/爱 (ài) for it: AIWeb3, with its mission to connect the DOTs with Chinese-language audiences. Evolving from WagMedia’s Chinese-language unit, AIWeb3 takes on the role of cultivating awareness of the Polkadot ecosystem through content created by the Chinese community.

The approach taken enables regular community members of AIWeb3’s Discord to donate points to content they like, somewhat similar to OpenGov. This engaging points system helps shape the content that appeals to the audience. It has shown that the Chinese community tends to prefer videos over articles, particularly content on DeFi opportunities and education about protocols.

In terms of platforms for content distribution, Bilibili, Douyin, WeChat, and, more recently, Xiaohongshu (RedNote) have been attracting the most traffic. However, they pose challenges for Crypto and Web3 related content, with AIWeb3 experiencing repeated WeChat group shutdowns and frequent video takedowns on Bilibili. This reinforces the need for censorship resistance and decentralization.

Until Web3 media platforms reach wider adoption, a hybrid approach can be considered the best option. As such AIWeb3 has prioritized X, YouTube, Discord and Telegram to appeal to Chinese communities beyond China, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and major diaspora hubs like the U.S., Canada, and Australia.

Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, serves as a supplementary channel, while Xiaohongshu is omitted due to its similarity. In particular, live sessions on X with ecosystem teams have attracted strong interest. This has helped AIWeb3 build one of the largest Chinese social media followings within the ecosystem, which has led to community members stepping up to create content.

We will now showcase a selection of content from creator channels who have remained active despite the current absence of funding. Please be mindful that the creators have evolved from a grassroots community effort, and are not KOLs. One can only imagine the satisfaction if a KOL-like creator were to emerge.

First up, there’s Kyrie, who has experienced remarkable growth in recent months, now surpassing 1K followers. His videos consistently receive engagement, with respectable views, comments, and likes, for a channel of its size. The content often blends Polkadot ecosystem updates with the broader crypto market, and even includes personal takes on macro and parallels with traditional markets.

Perhaps one of the earliest AIWeb3 community members to establish a dedicated channel is Xiucai, who now has amassed a following on YouTube larger than prominent ecosystem media teams like Polkaworld. Although his channel covers other Web3 ecosystems, he does post frequently. Furthermore, in an effort to attract more attention on Polkadot, he has included segments on Big Pancake, a delight long enjoyed by the Chinese community.

Giki has a reputation as being a respected Polkadot ecosystem agent, and her content is well-regarded within the Chinese community for its quality. When she occasionally takes time away from hosting events on X, she focuses on education through protocol guides and explainers.

Also occasionally taking time away from directing the AIWeb3 mission, DrCAO has launched a Chinese content channel called Heart of Polkadot. The idea is to serve as a focal point to inspire newer Chinese content creators while also acting as a reliable source for the latest Polkadot news.

Not every community member wants to run their own content channel. Thus, AIWeb3’s primary YouTube channel has been used to enable individuals to combine efforts as a team. Think of this like how The Kusamarian’s videos are made, but with community members instead of full-time professionals.

This means different members of the community could take on various roles such as research, scripting, filming, presenting, editing, and post-production. It is a fitting way to share the story of Polkadot!

As we strive to connect the DOTs, it seemingly becomes imperative that content not only attracts meaningful engagement but also addresses the nuances of different cultures.

Wag Roundup (January 23rd to January 29th)

News found by the community. Curated by the community. Backed by OpenGov.

DOT Ecosystem News

Written by yay.oi

• Inter Miami CF has unveiled its brand new Polkadot pink training jersey. Fans will soon be able to get their hands on one in Inter Miami CF Official Stores at Chase Stadium and Miami International Airport.
• Tuttle Capital has filed an application with the SEC for a 2x leveraged Polkadot ETF.
• The Web3 Foundation has announced the Wave 24 recipients of its grants program. Thirteen applicants received funding in the categories of Dev & Deployment Tooling, Runtime Development, Runtime Modules/Chains, DApps & APIs, Wallets, and DePINs.
• Jamixir, a team implementing JAM with Elixir, has become the first to get a JAM node running and producing blocks.
• Talisman has upgraded its fiat on and off ramping capabilities, offering support for DOT, ETH, and stablecoins thanks to an integration with Ramp.
• Polkadot Asset Hub USDC and USDT are now available for swapping, Paycek payments, and on/off ramping to EUR with Electrocoin.
• OpenGuildis collaborating with Polkadot Africa to help bring further education and career advancement to African Web3 builders.
• Beta support for privately transferring and gifting Asset Hub DOT is now available on Integritee Network’s Incognitee DApp.
• There’s another job opening at the Web3 Foundation. Applications are now open to fill the role of Senior Systems Engineer in Zug, Switzerland.
• Token Terminal continues building its support for the Polkadot ecosystem, this week integrating Energy Web X and Peaq.
• The DePIN Base Camp accelerator program, a collaboration between Peaq, Outlier Ventures, and 1kx, returns this February. Participants will receive mentorship and networking opportunities as well as the potential for investments of up to $200K.
• Peaq has integrated the Snapshot Web3 governance tool, offering DePIN builders features such as tailored governance systems and gas-free voting.
• Wave 1 of the XMAQUINA DEUS token genesis auctions has commenced. Eligible participants can now swap 1 PEAQ for 9 DEUS. At token genesis, 33% of DEUS will be available immediately, with the remainder vested linearly over 12 months.
• SkyX announces a new partnership with Derad Network, a DePIN for global aviation monitoring. SkyX plans to integrate its AI-driven weather data ADS-B ground stations, offering enhancements that could improve the safety and efficiency of air travel.
• You can now find the Charge app in the NATIX marketplace. Check it out now for a 100 Charge coin bonus.
• The Silencio sensor network continues to grow at a rapid pace. This week it surpassed 800K sensors.
• Silencio’s SLC token is now live and listed on KuCoin, Gate, MEXC, BitMart, and BingX centralized exchanges.
• To celebrate the launch of Silencio’s SLC token, KuCoin is running a listing campaign with a prize pool of 90M SLC.
• Bistroo’s BIST token is now live on the Peaq mainnet after a successful migration from Ethereum.
• With its first CEX listing and wider availability just around the corner, Invarch celebrated by burning 100M VARCH tokens on January 27th.
• Does this mean what we think it does? Hyperbridge integration with Avail may be just around the corner.
• Mimir, the enterprise-grade multisig wallet, now supports Polimec.
• The Polkaidentity self-sovereign decentralized identity DApp has now been added to the Nova Wallet DApp catalog.
• Total responsibility for the 270M LAOS token treasury has been transferred to the LAOS Network community. At token genesis, treasury funds were linearly vested for a period of 3 years, meaning 60M tokens are already available to fund community-approved initiatives.
• LAOS Network has launched the first season of Goal Revolution, a multiplayer football manager game enhanced by LAOS Bridgeless Minting. Get your free NFT players now and compete for a prize pool of 250 USDT.
• LAOS Network has partnered with the third-person vehicular shooter Metaclash: Digital Avatars of Destruction, offering enhancements to the game by seamlessly integrating Web3 features using its Bridgeless Minting technology.
• Jeyloo’s generative art collection Fractal Blossoms is minting now on KodaDot.
• Got enough PINK in your life? If not, now is your chance to grab the reins and take charge of the PINK community takeover. Applications to join the PINK Council are now open.
• In partnership with N3mus, Moonbeam’s weekly gaming tournament has returned. This week features The Great Escape and PINK’s Merge Madness.
• Bifrost has launched vPHA for pre-minting on Ethereum. Once the vault contract is integrated into Bifrost SLP and SLPx, it will become an omnichain liquid staking token compatible with all Bifrost-supported blockchains.
• Equilibrium DeFi vault participants, you have until February 25th to request withdrawals on the Equilibrium DApp.
• Blink and you’ll miss it. The Hydration money market increased the lending cap of vDOT by 111,111 this week. However, some very enthusiastic lenders managed to fill it in under seven minutes.
• After a successful $150K OTC purchase, Solana’s SOL token is now tradable on the Hydration Omnipool.
• Acala has announced its plans to integrate Snowbridge, the trustless bridge between Polkadot and Ethereum, bringing Euphrates one step closer to becoming a multichain LSTFi hub.
• Polkadot Referendum 1400 is open for voting. If passed, it will lower the cost of Snowbridge transfers from Polkadot to Ethereum from ~6.12 DOT to ~1.49 DOT. In addition, it will register native ETH on Asset Hub and make it a sufficient asset with a minimum balance of 15k Gwei.
• After the recent surge in vDOT lending on Hydration, Bifrost has proposed to add vDOT as a collateral asset on the Moonwell money market.
• Hydration Referendum 11 to add SOL to the Omnipool has passed.
• Hyperbridge has executed its first cross-chain governance action, which upgraded the consensus client across all supported EVM chains.
• Acala Referendum 152 is requesting 500K ACA to build a memepad and permissionless DEX on Acala EVM+.

DOT Ecosystem Events

Written by yay.oi

• On January 23rd, Polkadot Blockchain Academy hosted alumnus Daniel (Jamixir), whose team recently became the first to deploy a JAM node. He shared his own experiences with PBA Campus, which kicks off again in March.
• Peaq hosted green energy DePIN CPIN on January 24th to discuss its plans to build an incentivized network of green and smart energy devices.
• Polkadot Africa held its latest meetup in Kigali, Rwanda on January 24th. Attendees were given an introduction to the Polkadot ecosystem, which included setting up a wallet and minting their first POAP.
• After a successful token genesis event, Silencio held an AMA on January 24th to discuss the newly launched SLC token and what the future holds.
• On January 25th, Polkadot Africa hosted its first X Space of the year to discuss its latest updates and new partnerships. It featured Patricia and Cris from OpenGuild and our very own Ikhaled from WagMedia.
• Polkaworld hosted Travis (Acala), Max (Harbour Industrial Capital), and Seun (Hyperbridge) on January 27th for the January 2025 Polkadot Roundtable to discuss their projects and the latest about JAM, OpenGov, and the 2025 Roadmap.
• DeNet hosted an AMA on January 27th to answer the community’s questions about the upcoming Datakeeper Node sale.
• Energy Web X had some massive updates in its X Space on January 28th. By next month, XCM configuration is expected to be complete, paving the way for EWT DEX listings. Furthermore, EWT is going multichain and will soon be deployed as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum.
• Rogue Evolution hosted Ruediger and Denny from Quakecore on January 28th to hear about the incentivized network of seismic sensors that they are building on Peaq.
• XMAQUINA joined Peaq on January 29th to discuss the upcoming launch of the DEUS token and its first genesis auction.
• On Wednesday January 29th, Ellie Hyman and Matt Nowakowski hosted an X Space to discuss the latest Aventus governance proposal, which aims to establish a structured BD strategy.
• Aventus will be attending Merge in Buenos Aires from March 24th to 26th as a Bronze Sponsor. The event aims to forge connections between LATAM and Europe through Web3.
• If you’re planning to attend Paris Blockchain Week from April 8th to 10th, don’t forget to head on over to the Kylix Finance booth to say hi. Kylix will be pitching its project in the Start in Block contest, which has a prize pool of $10M+.

Extras

• Awesome cover art created by SKULLZ.
• For all you budding creators out there, don't hesitate any longer – join us now! There are plenty of rewards awaiting your creativity.