Eventually experience from DOT bounties! (June 23rd to June 29th)

What is up, my friends!

Summer is heating up, and ETF talk has resurfaced with VanEck’s Solana application. We had previously covered the low likelihood of getting more ETFs approved in the short term in our newsletter at the end of May. Since that time, the ETH ETFs have yet to go live, and furthermore, the outlook largely remains the same.

Given that the SEC previously used the CME market surveillance on both BTC and ETH ETFs, the likelihood of Solana getting an approval seems slim. Aside from needing CME backing, there could potentially be a battle with the SEC as they had previously labeled SOL a security.

While a favorable outcome for Solana would likely bode well for Polkadot as well as many of the top projects in Web3, it’s probably best to not get ahead of ourselves. Even though Polkadot has not been identified by the SEC as a security, it’s still one step at a time. This includes Coinbase filing with the CFTC to offer US regulated futures contracts for DOT on its platform.

Away from the ETF talk, and with the first wave of Head Ambassador applications through OpenGov starting to settle, there have been several intriguing bounties that have caught our attention. Our top story this week will focus on these bounties, and how they could potentially have a compelling impact on the Polkadot ecosystem.

UX seems to be an underlying theme with some of those bounties, and in general, Polkadot has often been criticized for poor UX, especially when a newbie's first experience is with Polkadot.js. However, with treasury bounty funding, the situation with Polkadot wallets has significantly improved. So, for this week’s edition, we will provide a featured update on the situation with Polkadot Wallets.

From OpenGov bounties to WagMedia bounties, this week there are a couple of new content bounties that have been announced. Bounty 26 is about Polkadot’s economics, with a deadline of July 5th and rewards of up to $120 worth of DOT. Bounty 27 covers NOMT, a project being worked on by Polkadot co-founder Rob Habermeier, with rewards of up to $150 worth of DOT and a deadline on July 4th.

Without further delay, let’s move on to experience the week’s stories and news updates.

Dodow, Chief Editor

Top Story of the Week - DOT Bounties

Written by yay.oi

‘Ello gov’na, what’s gov’nin. Summer sun got you feeling like a pirate captain? While you’ve been sailing the DeFi seas in search of a high-yielding spot to bury your bounty, our Polkadot curators have been carefully managing theirs. This week we’ve got some juicy news from Polkadot bounties old and new. Let's dive in and see what treasures await!

The decentralized nature of Polkadot governance allows anyone with a great idea to submit a proposal to fund a project and receive funding. Some great products, NovaWallet for example, have resulted from ongoing Kusama and Polkadot treasury funding.

That said, bounties offer some advantages over individual proposals. They offer a more focused and efficient way to allocate funding. Furthermore, they allow for the execution of multiple proposals to achieve a common goal, cutting down on fragmentation, and redundancy.

Bounties also add a layer of accountability, with curators having more control over how and when funds are distributed. In fact, carefully selected curators can be a bounty’s greatest asset.

Since its inception, the Events bounty received criticism for inefficiency and a lack of transparency. This week the Events Bounty relaunched after a restructuring resulting from Bounty Top up Referendum 843, Curator Removal and Replacement Referenda 758 and 765.

With any luck, a successful relaunch will lead to a significant rise in the diversity and frequency of events in the Polkadot ecosystem. A new events website will be launched soon, but the new team of curators are already accepting applications for event funding.

That’s not the only bounty that’s having a bit of a reshuffle. You may remember Giotto’s, “trust me bro,” unorthodox plan to load up the 100,000 DOT Games Bounty with 23 curators in the hopes that they could reach a strong consensus. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that plan didn’t quite work out. Since its approval in February, not a single DOT was spent.

In classic Giotto style, the decision-making process played out in a series of referenda and referenda cancellers. Firstly, Referendum 923 proposed to remove the Games Bounty curators. By the end of the day, Referendum 928 proposed to cancel Referendum 923 because, according to Giotto, the previous curators had agreed to hand over control to Angie Dalton and the Dot Play team.

In case you haven’t heard, Dot Play is an ambitious gaming bounty proposal for 1M DOT that aims to act as a gaming accelerator especially aiming to attract early-stage gaming projects to build on Substrate. Stay tuned for an updated proposal from the Dot Play team. Giotto has already submitted a Referendum Canceller for the Dot Play bounty, hopefully with their consent.

The Polkadot community gave their consent this week to initiate the Polkadot UX Bounty. Led by Braille, a collective co-founded by ex-Parity and current Distractive team members Benoit Campagnaud and Alexandre Houdart, the USD 500k UX Bounty aims to resolve existing problems with the Polkadot UX and make it more accessible and intuitive for end users.

With community approval secured, the curatorial team is now accepting community input. UX improvements are being cataloged and prioritized now in order to tackle the most important issues first.

Meanwhile, the DeFi, Infrastructure and Tooling Bounty is taking care of some of the back-end issues that have been preventing Polkadot’s DeFi ecosystem from living up to its full potential. With their USD 4M of funding, they have prioritized onboarding infrastructure in their first round of child bounties.

The Kucoin child bounty was allocated USD 63k for Asset Hub integration and support of USDT deposits and withdrawals. While USD 60k went to Ramp Network to integrate Asset Hub, with support for USD, USDC, and DOT deposits.

An allocation of USD 118k went to Zapper in a move to improve the visibility of Polkadot’s DeFi ecosystem. The EVM parachains Astar, Hydration, Moonbeam, and Acala will be integrated into their Web3 portfolio dashboard. This will provide exposure to a potential new user-base that may not yet be aware of the DeFi opportunities on Polkadot.

Snowbridge would potentially play a significant role in onboarding such users, and this week they opened a discussion on their retroactive and future funding. Their initial proposal is for ~USD 5.8M which will cover auditing, light-client relayers, past milestones, and future milestone payouts.

Future milestone payouts incentivize long-term commitment by using vesting and criteria related to the ongoing and long-term successful operation of the bridge. Furthermore, unpaid milestone payouts will be earmarked as a community insurance fund to compensate losses in case of a widespread hack.

Bounties have been shown to be an effective funding model for achieving specific goals, but their effectiveness depends on strong curatorial oversight. As evidenced by the Games Bounty, inefficient curatorship can easily lead to a bounty achieving very little progress at all.

In A Glass with Gav Episode 2, Gavin Wood described his vision for the future of OpenGov. The heart of it was that there should be more Fellowships and more sub-Treasuries. OpenGov in its current form suffers from a lack of direction or unified vision. While bounties can help with this, they don’t fully address the issue.

Gavin suggested a framework where treasury funds are segregated for distinct purposes with broad mission statements, essentially meta-bounties. Under the expert guidance of the Fellowships, Polkadot could ensure a more purposeful use of funds, and avoid some of the unnecessary drama when conflicting visions and egos collide in OpenGov.

Featured Update - DOT Wallets

Written by Sanchez

Now and then, on X, you come across a former Polkadot user complaining about the complexity of the JS wallet and general user experience. Such tweets are usually followed up with responses from the community on the newer and more hospitable wallets now available for users.

No doubt, if you have ever used the Polkadot JS wallet, you definitely couldn't cope with the rawness and the enormous amount of information available there. Most opine that it was and still is made for developers.

Newer wallets like Nova, Talisman, and Subwallet have solved the complications of the JS wallet and consistently seek to improve the user experience by adding more features and updates and the continuous integration of more chains. These wallets stand out for their innovative solutions to creating a better user experience and onboarding newer users.

Nova, a mobile-only wallet, has consistently sought to make onboarding users on Polkadot easy. The team at Novasama Technologies recently announced the release of Telenova. This Polkadot wallet built into Telegram allows functionalities such as receiving and sending DOT tokens, all from Telegram, to ease the onboarding process for newer users.

They have also recently released support for cloud backups for creating wallets, reducing the time to create a new wallet to seconds. This streamlines the process of generating a wallet, as the seed phrases are backed in iCloud or Google Drive, eliminating the typical need to write and store your seed phrases.

Cloud backing also enhances the process of recovering or syncing wallets across multiple devices, as the seed phrases are easily sourced from the cloud. That said, it does bear the risks associated with centralized cloud storage. While this feature isn’t for everyone, it is available for any user interested in using it and demonstrates the possibilities as it could potentially be optimized with decentralized cloud services.

Subwallet, on the other hand, is the first wallet to integrate the latest bridging features on Polkadot. It includes the Polkadot-Kusama Bridge, connecting Polkadot and Kusama, and Snowfork's trustless, decentralized Polkadot-Ethereum bridge, facilitating secure communication between both networks.

Besides bridges, they have enabled swaps of tokens within Polkadot, enabled by Hydration, and swaps from ETH and stables on Ethereum to Polkadot, enabled by Chainflip. They have also integrated the Asset Conversion Pallet, which allows the swapping of DOT to native USDC and USDT.

In a recent Space Monkeys interview with the Kusmarian, Subwallet made it clear that their strategy is aimed at being first to market and provide features that users want. Furthermore, they offer this support to non Polkadot projects building with Substrate such as Vara Network and Avail.

Next is Talisman which was the first wallet that automatically detects and switches to the network a DApp supports when going from EVM to Substrate or vice versa. Talisman also developed the seamless one-click staking function, and currently has the largest staking pools on Polkadot.

With the team’s interests in building a supreme multi-chain wallet, Talisman has recently partnered with Analog which enables the development of cross-chain DApps that leverage value from more than one chain. The team have also recently expanded their support for Ethereum and Arbitrum in steps to achieve their vision.

Currently, Talisman Quests are in full play. The team launched quests, where users collect points for performing actions on-chain and off-chain actions with supported chains using the Talisman wallet. Users can earn XP by wallet mining, which gives points for holding supported tokens in your Talisman wallet, completing missions across different chains, and referring other users.

All three wallets mentioned above have now integrated the new Polkadot Ledger app, which enables support for Ledger wallets around the Polkadot ecosystem. This has been a huge pain point as many users often faced issues utilizing Ledger with different parachains.

This app will allow for the use of Ledger on any parachain and anywhere in the Polkadot ecosystem, making interactions on Polkadot more comfortable and secure for users who use a ledger. The app will also congregate all parachain assets in one place, providing a streamlined process for managing their assets.

These integrations and newer features no doubt make the understanding and usage of Polkadot and its parachains easier. However, a lot of work still needs to be done to simplify aspects and functionalities within Polkadot. One such is the bridging between Polkadot and its parachains. On first use, this can significantly exasperate a user. Another is the multiple addresses each parachain possesses.

While there have been calls to improve the user experience on Polkadot, recently approved Referendum 819 provides a path with the Polkadot UX Bounty. The proposal seeks to improve the user experience and match Polkadot’s technical advances by resolving existing UX problems. It involves educating core dev teams and ecosystem partners on the best UX practices and fixing UX insufficiencies and pain points throughout the Polkadot ecosystem.

Polkadot's UX with wallets has come a long way, yet crypto Twitter can still be quite tribal without actually trying to use them. Those who have tried these wallets will find they are on par with the top wallets in other ecosystems.

You could argue that complexity arises from the plethora of parachains on both Polkadot and Kusama, combined with EVM versus native Substrate interfaces. That said, with initiatives like the Polkadot UX Bounty and better public education through content initiatives like WagMedia, there is a progressive path forward.

General News

Written by yay.oi

• Astar Network is merging with its web3 development offshoot Startale Labs in a strategic partnership that aims to capitalize on their combined strengths. Astar will provide a robust technological foundation while Startale brings its established industry collaborations.

• Upcoming DeFi platform Mosaic Chain wins Polkadot Auction 73 with a self-funded bid of 10,129 DOT.

• Nova Wallet’s latest update enables the cloud storage of passphrases to iCloud and Google Drive, streamlining wallet creation, migration, and syncing for a more convenient user experience.

• Subwallet integrates Snowbridge transfers of WETH and WBTC from Ethereum to Polkadot.

• A runtime upgrade which enabled Asynchronous Backing on Moonriver caused a staking rewards calculation issue which subsequently resolved itself.

• Polimec’s first funding issuer Apillon enters the Community round, with token allocation bids available to eligible users at the weighted average price of 0.24c.

• Acurast announces its plan to tap in to Nodle’s vast smartphone DePIN, allowing users to contribute their compute power via the Nodle app.

• Yet another DePIN has chosen to build on the Peaq Network! Combinder aims to establish the world’s largest distributed virtual power plant using DePIN for energy data and grid load management.

• Diode, a decentralized Web3 alternative to Discord and Slack built on Moonbeam, steps into the Moonrise spotlight.

• Integritee Network has opened their collator set to external operators and is accepting new candidates, with incentives of up to USD 300 per month in TEER tokens.

• The municipality of Santo Antônio da Alegria will be launching Alegria token, Brazil’s first municipal blockchain currency thanks to a collaboration between Tanssi and C9.

• The new and improved DOT Events Bounty is now accepting applications to fund Meetups, Key Events, and Extraordinary Events.

• The Polkadot BD Bounty announces the new Polkadot Business Development program which retroactively rewards successful business development activities.

NFT & DEFI News

Written by Sanchez

• Ajuna Network launched the Last Battle of Bajun Airlyft campaign, which consists of on and off-chain quests where users can earn Baju tokens, Avatars, Ballz, and more.

• Public Pressure is launching the Music Protocol, a Web3 L1 blockchain for distributing music across the internet. The native token will be $RECORD, which fans can stake on their artists to enable them to earn passive income.

• Evrloot announced two campaigns for July. Dungeon Runs V2, which introduces Loot and a new NPC, and the Eyes on Us marketing campaign, hosted by Moonbeam Network, intended to attract new players to Evrloot.

• The minting of the Under the Microscope NFT collection by Gorilla Sun is currently live on Kodadot. The collection is limited to 64 NFTs.

• The free mint of the second character, Luna Stronghold, on the Age of Chronos is live. A player must possess an NFT from each of the four character types to play this web-based dungeon crawler game.

• Velocity Labs has announced the payments for the first three child bounties on its DeFi and Infrastructure bounty. The recipients include Kucoin and Ramp Network, implemented for Asset hub integrations, and Zapper, for integrating 4 EVM parachains into the platform.

• You can climb the leaderboard while learning and buildingon Acala EVM on the EasyA app

• Acala announces the integration of jitoSOL. This is a crucial first step for Acala to become the Liquidity Layer X for all blockchains by providing optimal liquidity and capital efficiency.

• Picasso is deprecating the Pablo DEX and its liquid-staked DOT, lsDOT. Users should remove their LPs and unstake their DOTs within 60 days, as the front end will be removed. The team aims to focus on more impactful projects.

• The Hydration Omnipool surpassed $50 million in TVL.

• Zenlink has teased the Harvest Paradise, which will implement advanced yield strategies on Polkadot.

• Users can now manage their GLMR and HDX tokens on the Pendulum Network via Nova Wallet.

Governance & Events News

Written by Sanchez & yay.oi

• The proposal to pay active permissionless collators on the Integritee Network up to $300 per month for optimal performances has passed. This is being done to foster the decentralization of the Network as they look to onboard more collators.
• The Hydration runtime has been upgraded to v28.00 after passing Referendum 160. New Omnipool liquidity limits have been added, with test remote swaps for ZTG.
• Snowfork has started discussions for an upcoming treasury proposal of $5.8 million, which will cover the retroactive and future costs of developing and managing the Polkadot-Ethereum bridge.
• Alice und Bob has been elected as a Polkadot Head ambassador, with 92.3% of voters in support of his application.
• Astar provided some insights into the recently announced Astar Evolution on June 26th.
• In Ajuna’s Community Call on June 27th, Cédric Decoster and Nicholas Douzinas gave some updates on Polkadot Play, BBB, AJUN and more.
• On June 27th, Alexandra (PBA) hosted Francisco Agosti (Tanssi), Joshua Waller (Phala), Toni Mateos (LAOS), and Dudley Needham (KILT) to discuss the flexibility and advantages of Web3 building on Polkadot.
• Talisman hosted Mandala Chain co-founder Michael Bennalack on June 27th to discuss their Web3 integrations with enterprise and government in Indonesia, South East Asia, and beyond.

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.