What is up my friends! This week we see XCM being implemented into Polkadot, something we have all been eagerly anticipating. With all the recent developments of the Parachains, along with all the big announcements that we cover at WagMedia then we have a belief of exciting things on the horizon.

If you want excitement now, then, both the WagMedia Twitter and discord have hit the 500 follower mark. Further, excitement has got to be the Moonsama carnage invite. Now on to the news as we see a flurry of pen-manship from keen waggers wanting to make the list.

Top News of the Week

The enablement of XCM on Polkadot signifies a momentous milestone for the entire ecosystem. A deep dive into what Cross-Consensus Messaging format (XCM in short) can be found here in a blog by Dr Gavin Wood. In simple terms it is an extensible format that will allow parachains to be able to communicate with one another.

As further explained by Rob Habermeier in an epic thread, XCM represents the messages with meaningful context, whilst XCMP (which we also often hear about) is the channels for data transport. Hence you will need XCM to be able to communicate on these channels to the other chains. Furthermore, this is highly benefical as it is devoid of the security risks that we have heard a lot about when dealing with bridges between chains.

The Web3 vision of Dotsama is for an Interoperable Multichain World, and with XCM now on Polkadot then this journey can now start across both Kusama and Polkadot parachains. Such is the value of XCM that by being able to communicate across the different chains, it will unlock many opportunities within the entire Dotsama ecosystem. With further developments on Substate pallets, then this capability can be potentially extended with other blockchains.

Whilst the runtime upgrade only just happened this week, we have seen plenty of announcements leading to this. And now that we have XCM enabled, we are seeing various teams within the ecosystem tirelessly working to captilise on the various use-cases that this brings.

For instance, on Moonbeam the first use of XCM was to bring the Dot token, which now lives as xcDOT. Furthermore, several Defi dApps on the chain are all ready and have hit the ground running.

Acala have also enabled the capability and is now preparing for Liquid Staking Dot.

Whilst Parellel have also enabled this capability, and are the first to have Liquid Staking Dot working on their Superapp.

Meanwhile, Astar are also close and have been able share the demonstration of the resulting xc20 assets on their Shibuya testnet.

More news is to be expected from the other Polkadot parachains who are at various stages of onboarding since winning their respective slots. We shall all be standing by ready to wag.

Speed Reading

Some quick messages from the Treasuries

• Subsocial had a big month in April with releasing Dotsama Domains v1, token redenomination and more. Read up about it here.
• Confused on how to set up an account to use Subsocial? Check out a full guide on how to get started.
• Finally Polkadot supports XCM that allows Parachains to communicate each other. Astar are going to open channels with other parachains and DOT itself very soon. Here is the demo of how XCM works on their testnet.

Nitty Gritty

• Check out Alex’s talk at Amsterdot where he discusses Polka Haus, the upcoming parachain Sumi, and the DotSama community.
• Energy Web published an article that explains its Consortia Relay Chain (CRC) Staking Pool Snapshots. Provides a comprehensive explanation of the approach, incentivization/rewards, and restrictions.
• Did you read the Post-Mortem analysis of the socially engineered hack on RMRK’s discord in March – definitely worthwhile to have a glance.
• Messari issues a report “State of Polkadot Q1 2022”. It is a very thorough review/analysis of Polkadot backed by nicely visualized data.
• SUB to your favorite content creators, so that they get rewarded and you get staking rewards - demo is coming soon.
• Did you know Quant Network's Overledger 2.2.5 supports Polkadot Relay Chain through new standardized APIs. Support for all available Ethereum-based functions on Polkadot includes creating transactions, searching transactions or blocks, monitoring activity on an address or smart contract, and more.
• SNOW Network has successfully launched the Artic Testnet on Rococo. Plenty of development and testing is ongoing. ICE Network also introduces a Blockchain Development Portal, which contains a broad range of information to support developers. Additionally, ICE/SNOW published an article covering interoperability capabilities to any blockchain via its Blockchain Transmission Protocol, and how this will enhance XCMP.
• Automata continues with expanding its portfolio of products. Check out their article about their 2FA Guru product, which is essentially two-factor authentication for EVM compatible dApps. Amongst its first users include: zksync, Polygon Studios (Polygon’s NFT, Gaming, Metaverse initiative), and Celer Network.
• Quantum Random Number Generator from API3DAO is now available to Moonbeam and Moonriver. Might not be so obvious, but unbiased random number generation plays a key role in certain operations when it comes to gaming, gambling, NFT generative art, etc. Also Moonbeam with some sweet Gelato. Gelato Network is arguably the largest multi-chain automation protocol. Soon you can set and forget with all auto yield harvesting/compounding, as well as other automation use-cases that the suite can provide.
• For further Moonbeam recaps here is their April Dispatch publication that covers the latest developments, newest integrations, as well as upcoming events.
• Pontem has revealed some information on their discord about how they will be moving forward. The most notable piece of information shared is that they will no longer have their own blockchain. Based on their response, deploying Move VM as a canary network on Aptos is not the same as Dotsama (where canary network = parachain = L1 blockchain). Either way, future working with Dotsama parachains still seems to be a possibility, but right now, there is no surprise that they are focused on their partnership and alignment with Aptos.
• Centrifuge April Monthly round-up is here.
• Imbue Network (decentralized crowdfunding DAO), will be partnering with Fractal Protocol to utilize their KYC solution. The move is to address concerns over bad actors, by creating a transparent, safe, and fair-level playing field. Furthermore, it can help with onboarding institutional investors, as well as address regulations that may come as we move towards mass adoption.
• Ser, did you catch the recent episode on the Kusamarian channel about DICO/KICO? Well, the DICO team has coincidently released an article explaining what they are about. Here is a Spanish language version.
• Following from April’s announcement about Venture DAO template, SubDAO releases it's beta testing statistics and rewards distribution.
• Check out some research analysis from the Oak Networks team (recording from Amsterdot).
• Did you know KILT are proposing to double staking rewards for delegators and collators.
• Dia becomes the first WASM compatible Oracle to be deployed on Astar.
• The value of a blockchain explorer is not to be overlooked. CLV has teamed up with Etherscan and has now launched CLVscan to track EVM assets on the CLV chain.
• Attention Moonbeam delegators who are currently participating in collator staking. May 26th is the expected date when the change for no rewards during the revoke period is implemented. The deployment process is currently being run on Moonbase. More details can be found in this awareness thread.
• Check out what developers are up to on Altair. This includes NFT pricing on their NFT fairground and utilizing financial NFTs.
• Wanchain has deployed new bridges to connect Moonbeam, Moonriver, and Polkadot Relay Chain. Bridges that are compatible with Moonriver's substrate cross-chain assets (which use Polkadot's XCM format and XCMP transport protocol) - xcKSM, xcKAR, xcKINT, xcRMRK, xcBNC, and xcBTC will also be deployed, allowing these assets to be used outside of Dotsama ecosystem.
• Coinbase KSM listing is unofficially expected.
• Binance has launched some Litentry Locked Staking incentive with rewards up to 61.99% APY (90 day lock).
• @DrCao with more helpful educational videos covering numerous XCM insights, Dot staking on ParallelFi, Litentry claim form, Shiden, Web3.
• @Pnp created an informative thread on the application of blockchain explorer tools on Astar.

Crowdloan Updates

• Congratulations to Bifrost for winning the 35th Kusama parachain slot. This was a self-funded slot without crowdloan contributions. That being said, you can always use their platform as an indirect form of contribution.
• Congratulations to Polkadex for winning the 17th Polkadot parachain slot (16th Auction). Contributions were just over 970K dot, from 2313 contributors.
• Bajun (Ajuna Network’s Canary Network) is going for the Kusama Auction from May 16th. Contribution options include: polkadot.js, the team’s crowdloan page, Parallel Finance, and various wallets supported. They are already accepting contributions now, so check out the crowdloan rewards article from the team, which provides details of the juicy rewards/incentives. NOTE: some incentives might be time sensitive.
• You can now claim your Interlay tokens, here is an article covering what to do.
• Litentry crowdloan may need users to fill out a claim form, but it is not very easy, check out @DrCAO’s video guide.

What's in Your Wallet?

• Check out a useful guide from the SubWallet team on how to use/interact with Singular, even covers minting and listing your own NFTs. The wiki also has guides to other popular Dotsama dApps such as Astar Portal, Subsocial, Bitfrost, etc.
• Evrloot partnership with Talisman - you will now be able to manage Soul and Equipment NFTs.
• Nodle Network will use Talisman by default on its upcoming Web UI.

AMA and IRL Events Round-up

• Sign-up free here to the WASM conference, organized by Supercolony on 31 May 2022. Various Dotsama teams will be featured.
• Unique's CTO Greg Zaitsev covers Advanced NFTs. Register with Polkadot India to enhance your knowledge on 27 May 6-8pm IST.
• Listen to Phala's Core developer Wenfeng Wang introduce SubBridge at a seminar on May 10, 14:00 UTC.
• Get ready for 8th episode of RMRK roundtable on May 9th at 16:00 UTC.
• Nodle will be at a Global Investor Conference in Lisbon between May 18 to 19 2022. You can join in person or virtually. NOTE: might need to be an institutional investor?
• Darwinia hosted an AMA that provides more insights about Imbue Network - Twitter spaces recording from May 6th.

Translating Dotsama

Some excellent translations and non-English original creations, which you may find fitting to share with family, friends, and neighbors around the world.

• @Pitcoin is amazing as usual with his consistent Portuguese translations on all things Astar. This week featuring: Setting up endpoints for Astar (includes video tutorial), verification with Subscan, how to mint NFTs on Astar using TofuNFT, creating a native Astar wallet, Shiden compounding dApp staking, Astar XCM overview, details of Supercolony WASM conference, and Astar workshop details hosted by SubSquid.
• @Panegali also turning it up with plenty of Portuguese translations. This week featuring: Messari Polkadot report, Unique re-fungible NFTs, part two of his language interpretation of the Polkadot Whitepaper, and a brief overview of Robonomics.
• @paulozago working tirelessly creating Portuguese language creations with his videos, subsocial/ medium articles, and podcasts. This week he has covered an overview of 6 of the latest Dot parachains participanting in the auctions and XCM.
• @aemonk stepping in with some German translations of Composable’s Chaos and Angular.
• @asitxu50 with a Spanish language thread about his favorite NFT project Exosama.

NFTs and the Metaverse: The Heartbeat of Dotsama

• Project updates from Donnie, if you want to know what’s happening with Moonsama and Exosama. For instance Moonsama will soon be implementing $Fish nfts into their universe so that fish can be caught in game. Also Donnie has invited more communities to Moonsama Carnage. Fellow waggers are you ready?
• Comprehensive thread from Evrloot about their Dark fantasy RPG game. They have Amazing story tellers from talisman onboarded into talisman ship in evrloot with red hand discord role. Also were you involved with first Prologue encounter that took place? They have announced their soul NFT sale with 3 types of cards is coming in the following weeks. This NFT will have 8 slots where any or all of the 5 slots can be equipped by items by default after purchase based on luck. Here is a teaser.
• Astar Cats setting off some rockets. This is an airdropped collection for cat holders. It is also done on the Optimism blockchain, with 2500 that wasn't airdropped. Here is a thread from the team that provides a comprehensive explanation.
• Limited auction for ExiledRacers happening soon, check out the article for more details.
• Monthly update by Bit.Country, includes Avatar customization, custom wearables, Ambassador programme, release of Public Alpha Testnet, and more. Also, the Metaverse News video format covers this.
• Another NFT marketplace for Moonbeam. Mintverse now supports Moonbeam as well as Ethereum and BNB chains.

Additionally, there is 0% transaction fees for sellers.

• Multi Genesis NFT public sale started on May 2nd at 7 pm UTC.
• Are you aware of the new Canary Network Agency NFT project – has its links to the Kusama Kingdom. Marlua's holders have 20 WL spots. Also, they have revealed their dope Canary Network Agency HQ website!
• The first revealed Moonglade tree is here.
• Amazing sneak peek of PhalaWorld Cyborg specie. Also a peak of a well-known PhalaWorld Monk.
• Did you catch KodaDot Twitter spaces with the Subsquid team? Also, they have an interesting concept which incentivise reading, to encourage engagement.
• Here’s a great listen on Kraken’s parachain podcast on RMRK.
• If you are doing a lot of voyages in DPS , then here is the Metamask Settings for the Cheapest Gas.
• Check out the article all about The Burrows of Chaos collection on Singular.
• Did you know that Skybreach now have a website. So were you one of the 5 lucky winners from 200 Twitter entries for the Sky breach Land Giveaway Competition? Also, 3 HUGE things you need to know for RMRK Skybreach metaverse land!
• Polkadot retweeted Bruno’s definition of metaverse - great minds think alike.
• Were you involved with the Moonriver NFT quests? Well, the NFTs have been distributed. Also, holders of quest1 NFT will have their own perks. Everyone can join quest 2 but champions will get an advantage.
• Check out Houses of Rome "State of the Republic" #2 issue. Also here’s a short demo of the Houses of Rome marketplace - categories include typical armor slots, relics, blueprints, potions, tools, and characters.
• Check out Metamorph NFT new logo, and opening its services to more NFT artists.
• Collab between Cosmic Jester and Mushroomtopia Drop (36 unique NFT) for the Friends of Mushroomtopia collection is coming soon.
• Attention Archiverse community, the migration to RMRK 2.0 is active. Everyone who migrates before May 14 will receive an exclusive reward (different from the one for the first 50 collectors). Also, Banners PyramidA, limited banner, OG badge (for first 50 owners) have been airdropped to eligible wallets.
• Angels dinos have been dropped to the wallets.
• Efinity / Enjin announced that IKONIC, the world's first dedicated Esports NFT marketplace, will adopt and integrate with Efinity into its NFT marketplace, enabling users to have access to cross-chain, in-game NFT items. Check out the article in the link for more details.
• Skylab held an AMA with Astar Degens. Did you manage to bag an incubator before the sale closed?
• @DiscLoser with another quality read, as he uncovers The Burrows of Chaos NFT collection.

For broader news on NFTs in Web3 follow RMRK’s weekly NFT update.

Want to know sooner about Dotsama NFTs? Daily RMRK Updates courtesy of MARIO.

DeFI

• Taiga's latest community call recording from April 28th covers several bullish moves. Current taiKSM rewards upwards to 50% quarterly. Work on application for Kusama treasury grant to bootstrap taiKSM pool. Upcoming launch of aUSD-UST-USDT stablecoin 3-pool.
• Do you know about Star Swap DEX on Astar? They have been selling their NFT star card, which could lead to airdropped tokens if you participate and have a card.
• Equilibrium whitelist for sale on republic is now open.
• Compounding rewards now automatically deployed to Shiden dapp staking.
• Did you know that KSM rewards on LIDO are an impressive 25%.
• Starlay Finance announces partnership with InsureDAO, a decentralised insurance protocol that allows anyone to create an insurance market for their DeFi protocol.
• Uniswap has opened a vote to decide on the deployment to Moonbeam via Nomad. The previous post on this was just a litmus text. This is the real deal. It appears that Moonbeam will be providing $2.5 million to aid in Uniswap’s goal to deploy on multiple chains. This is quite big news as it adds credibility and allows for more assets to come in and spread within the ecosystem utilizing XCM.
• Moonbeam Universe recording covers a number DeFi protocols on Moonriver (session includes some demonstrations as well as community Q&A.
• Check out the post from the Mangata team covering the big KSM unlock.
• Parallel Finance users will soon be able to use Ledger to add further security for liquid staking. Also, did you see their juicy KSM incentives.
• Bifrost staking liquidity protocol is now live. Another option for liquid staking your KSM, also wen DOT?
• After enabling Dot transfers, Parallel is the first within the Dotsama to release Dot liquid staking. Up to 14.5% APY plus defi opportunities. (NOTE: please do read the FAQ before going ahead, as there is a 29-day unstake period, although you can swap the derivative dot via the open market. Additionally, there is also a slashing risk).
• Monthly newsletter to round up all the highlights from the Composable Finance Ecosystem
• Are you interested in joining the talented ranks in the Taiga ambassador program?
• Find out more in the introduction article about Composable Labs, the R&D, and incubation arm of Composable Finance.
• Composable provides a deep dive into a new design for CHAOS, which is substrate financial NFTs (fNFT). It opens the doors to improved functionality and a whole host of possibilities.
• QiDao integrates Composable’s Bribe Protocol (note: it had been announced on their roadmap back in March). Voters using Qi can now be bribed to determine which collaterals get paid to borrow.
• Check out a nice guide from the Interlay team on kBTC opportunities.
• Some exciting Zenlink news. xcDot now on Zenlink. The article here provides details on the exciting things you can do. Including Zenlink Xtransfers, GLMR/xcDOT bootstrapping event, and subsequent LP farming.
• Check out the overview of DeCartel which is an alliance formed by Astar’s Starlay Finance with other promising projects within the Astar Ecosystem (such as Kagal, Muuu, and Arthswap).
• HydraDX is getting closer to launching, and is currently at the final stages of its substrate pallets. Followers may recall that they have been doing a study that resulted in a two token approach. Here is their latest blog update, the analogy used is Traditional AMM = many fish bowls, whereas Omnipool = one big Ocean. Looking forward to the next article in the series, as the HydraDX team will cover how Omnipool addresses Impermanent loss.
• @Je created a fantastic article on the potential of Stablecoins for Defi within Dotsama.
• @usafmike putting out a couple of really useful Degenning Thru Dotsama Defi videos. This week he covers KSM APY strategies and explores some high yield farming with Astar Defi protocols (Kagla and Muuu).
• @Crane producing a steller in-depth blog analysis on Mangata X’s crowdloan offer.

Governance

• Check out public referendum 193 for RMRK’s sufficiency on Statemine.
• Council governance was used to fund the epic Polkadot Beginners guide. You can download the PDF version or look at the NFT version (which was recently minted on Singular). Here is the motion on Polkassembly and agree with the sentiment - especially with it being from a non-technical perspective.
• Hooray referendum 190 NFTs have been distributed. Also, NFTs for those who voted on Referendum 191 are airdropped. Which ones did you get?
• Referendum 194 is about Swap Leases for Moonriver and Khala.
• Those who won the Exosama WL list via KSM governance voting, please check out instructions via the tweet on how to provide your Eth address using the Sumi dApp.
• Further details here on Referendum 195, which is about upgrading to runtime v9200.
• Eligibility for getting a rare NFT for voting in governance has changed to 0.2KSM to stop participants gaming the system. Furthermore, here is a detailed thread about voting on Kusama referendum to get rare NFTs involving conviction.
• To signify the 10th item milestone of the Governance NFTs, Talisman is giving out a Spirit key to voters. You need to emote on the 4 spirit keys that have been earmarked for the giveaway.
• Kint holders you may want to check out the recent Kintsuagi governance.
• @Je with an awesome article covering WagMedia’s treasury proposal.

Rumors & Alpha

Do Your Own Research! These finds are unconfirmed alpha in Dotsama

• Alpha from Polka Haus: look out for Moonsama/Exosama Cocktail (polka potion).
• Ahead of the upcoming WASM conference Bruno indicates it could have some utility for RMRK.
• Heiko looks to be launching on ETH/SOL as well, soon. It's currently on their dApp but not selectable.
• Could Moonsama Grain be connected to Rome?
• Rich dropping into Chaos Collective discord and giving hints about music content.
• Dan Reecer indicating that 6.5M Dot is being unstaked. Get ready for LDot staking on Acala, and also Tapio coming soon, which will bring further incentives.

Beginner’s Guide

New to Polkadot? Or maybe you have some friends who keep coins on a CEX but haven't become a part of a community yet? Share this with them to get them started! It will be updated weekly with new content and is open for changes. Feel free to leave a comment and I'll add content that's needed. The Hitchhiker's Guide to Dotsama

Another mind-blowing week! Our WagMedia discord is the primary source for most of the content in this newsletter – thanks a ton fam! These are just the highlights, for more in-depth news join the discord and get incentivized to learn more about the ecosystem and provide news, alpha, and content to us all. As always, I’m open to feedback and I hope you find this helpful. Looking forward to yet another week of exponential growth in the DotSama ecosystem.

• What is WagMedia?
• WagMedia Discord.
• Jay Chrawnna provides us all with extremely entertaining updates on everything DotSama

Tips appreciated

KSM

• GL85fwNiFfUqkCcmtrq7eD5DphB1QWJrxkgMme5qdSuFfap

Metamask

• 0x66b9f30B38Cb6d61374D15D8A9D220561E715995