JAMmed! - Newsletter Edition 85

In this week’s edition:

1. Editorial: Tax mode, JAMazing news & insights, and the recent standout content by WM creators.
2. Top Story - WAG’s the JAM?: exploring the latest development and insights about JAM that concluded January.
3. Featured Update - JAMuary Content: catch up on the standout content created since our last update.
4. Wag Roundup: News from our Finders Program between January 30th and February 5th.
5. Extras: Credits and anything else.

Editorial

What is up, my friends!

The threat of imposing tariffs has impacted the markets, and although there was some pause, further trade wars still loom large. While those in the crypto world are accustomed to volatility, the expectation is of a positive path toward adoption, with the possibility of a Bitcoin reserve in the mix.

Shifting from trade wars involving tax on imports or exports of goods, it seems Gav’s previous workplace has entered “war mode”, with brighter tax advice emerging. Meanwhile, our Chief Architect appears to be in “JAM mode” as the month concludes with hot news and insights on building the world computer.

As such, in this week’s top story, we’ll cover these JAMazing news and insights. Additionally, we’ll enter “review mode” to feature updates on the recent standout content being created as JAMuary wraps up.

Speaking of amazing insights, did you get a chance to read Vampsy’s latest analytics report? Instead of focusing on WagMedia data, he redirected his data analysis to Polkadot. Perhaps it could inspire you with creative angles to join us in creating content.

Dodow, Chief Editor

Top Story of the Week - WAG’s the JAM?

Written by yay.oi

What’s TOASTin’, JAMily? January’s a wrap, and the seasonal festivities are behind us, but we still have plenty to look forward to. While the DOT event vibes were strong across Europe this week, it was the inaugural Ambassador Fellowship Meetup in Vancouver that really turned heads, thanks to a very special guest.

The man of the moment was none other than Polkadot founder and chief architect Gavin Wood, who has just dropped the JAM Gray Paper version 0.6. What makes this version particularly special is that it signals a feature freeze on the JAM protocol. From this point onward, further development will be limited to tweaks, optimizations, and audits.

There was also some big JAM news for Jamixir, a team that is implementing JAM in Elixir. They became the first to deploy a JAM node and start producing blocks. With node implementation diversity a high priority for the JAM protocol, you can expect to see more news soon from the 35+ implementation teams.

Back at the Vancouver mixir, Jay Chrawwna kicked the night off by inviting ambassador Lucy Coulden to the stage to deliver an ambitious declaration. The Ambassador Fellowship is targeting 10K Polkadot meetups globally each month, with Gav potentially making a few more surprise appearances.

While achieving that milestone may take some time, Jay shared the impressive current figures regarding Polkadot’s rollups. According to Token Terminal data, this week Polkadot hosted 10 out of the top 20 rollups by transaction count.

Frequency, the blockchain that would power Project Liberty’s Tiktok bid if successful, topped the list. Meanwhile, Jay made a point to highlight the achievements of Mythical and the potential of Mandala Chain.

Gavin, however, was more interested in name-dropping Peaq, sending its community into a bit of a frenzy. Although, some of them did seem to have gotten their wires crossed and never got the memo that Peaq is a Polkadot parachain (i.e. rollup).

January saw the continuation of big developments for Peaq. There are now 6M machines in the Peaqosystem, with 1M registered on-chain. Additionally, it also recorded 1M transactions in January. At this rate, we may soon see it join the top twenty rollups.

With the amount of new activity coming from Peaq DePINs, it’s looking promising. In late January, Silencio successfully launched its SLC token, which is now trading on five centralized exchanges. But if decentralized robotics is more your JAM, there’s still time to participate in XMAQUINA’s first wave of DEUS token genesis auctions.

While parachains such as Peaq, will still continue on JAM as part of a Parachains Core Service, building in the Polkadot ecosystem will become a lot more flexible. The Polkadot community has been trying to process the complexities of JAM for almost a year now, but it’s milestone events such as the Vancouver meetup that really help to give a better understanding.

The recurring theme of the evening was coherency, which according to Gav is a primary problem that JAM aims to solve. As a system grows in size, it becomes increasingly difficult for its components to interact. The growing distance between its elements can result in variable time delays and distorted messaging.

In Polkadot, scaling is achieved through the sharded parachain model. Coherency is maintained within the confines of a parachain, but at the expense of reduced coherency between other parachains.

JAM takes a different approach. Parachains continue to operate within a Core Service, but are no longer first-class citizens. Reducing the rigid boundaries between rollups results in a kind of semi-coherence. The flexibility of fluid boundaries allows independent rollup components to mix together, creating temporary coherent environments with each other.

All this is possible thanks to JAM’s shared data lake, which provides a coherent data availability (DA) layer that far exceeds the scale of any other ecosystem offering. That said, even with a massive 2 petabytes of DA, data retention is not indefinite.

Data is automatically retained for 28 days, but it can be preserved beyond this period as long as it is still being used through paid computations. This allows for the possibility of scheduling processes that create persistent bubbles of coherency.

A lot of the aforementioned information extracted from Gav in Vancouver came thanks to the bubbling persistence of an audience member named Stephanie, whose relentless questions demanded coherent answers. She may have even earned herself a new fan or two.

While the theme of coherency featured strongly at the Vancouver meetup, it is by no means the only criterion that Polkadot and JAM have aimed to address. In an interview featured in Forbes magazine this week, Gav laid out all five criteria for evaluating a blockchain: resilience, performance, generality, accessibility, and coherence. You can check out Goku’s thread for a nice rundown.

Publication in Forbes magazine was not the only mainstream validation that Polkadot received this January. Over in the US, the SEC received not one, but two filings for DOT ETFs.

Tuttle Capital got in there first with one for the DOT bulls. While not the most degenerate play out there, it is offering a 2x leverage. Hopes and prayers that you don’t get rekt, trad-fi fam.

The second DOT ETF application came with a bit of foreshadowing, as covered in Recap Dotcember. On January 31st, Swiss-based 21 Shares filed for the 21Shares Polkadot Trust ETF on the CBOE BZX US Equities Exchange.

For the time being, we can only really view these applications as test cases to see where things stand with the new US administration and SEC leadership. That said, a positive result will indicate that CME-regulated futures markets are no longer a prerequisite, which some say will open the crypto ETF floodgates.

Whether or not those floodgates open, February in the Polkadot world will be all about buidlin’ down below and partyin’ up top. Deep below the grand Polkadot Palace in Cascais, Portugal, the JAM TOASTER testnet is being built as we speak.

Around half of the 86 machines, each with 96 cores, for phase 1 JAM tests have already been delivered. Major-scale testing is expected to commence as soon as late February, using at least one, but hopefully more implementations. Charles Hoskins and the Midnight team may even drop by the palace in May to test some potential Cardano Midnight integrations.

Meanwhile, for the upstairs partiers, the Polkadot Palace jacuzzi will be powered by some conveniently placed TOASTER heat sinks. Although, whoever decides to test it out with Gav may be in for an uncomfortably warm surprise during full-scale testing... for, in close proximity to such highly disruptive chaotic innovation, anything could happen!

Here’s praying the high-tech hot-tub doesn’t send our founder and chief architect to another dimension. After all, he’s got a very busy few months ahead of him, not to mention the rest of us.

Gav’s appearance in Vancouver was a timely reminder that being so deeply on the cutting edge of technology, explaining Polkadot and JAM to outsiders does not come easily. To get a clear and comprehensible message of what we’re offering out there, we’re going to need all the help we can get.

If you’re still struggling to get your head around JAM, Kian Paimani’s Demystifying JAMand Shawn Tabrizi’s How JAM changes the future of Web3 are some great starting points. You could even share what you’ve learned in a tweet or two. So, as the Polkadot ecosystem builders build, creators create, and agents… age, let’s get out there and start spreading that JAM.

Featured Update - JAMuary Content

Written by Dodow

The growth of the WagMedia creator economy continues to take shape as we complete the first month of 2025. While some creators have taken time to rest, the steady flow of submissions remains. In particular, newer creators have been ramping up their output as they try to figure out smart engagement and improve quality.

To kick things off with our coverage of standout content, we begin amid the backdrop of record-breaking TPS from the Spammening and a new WagMedia rewards record. Our creators seemed determined to make one final push for new heights to close out 2024.

The Spammening likely influenced some of our creators to take fresh approaches on the transaction angle. Emil took a closer look at block time bottlenecks, provided a comprehensive analysis comparing the leading blockchains, and was rewarded with 23 DOT. JesseBlessed covered the perspective of being ready to handle the mass adoption surge, earning 11 DOT.

Lily reached new heights with a personal rewards record of 21 DOT for her Polkadot Pay review and comparison with Web2 payment applications. Meanwhile, Pieky continued to experiment with new topics and received 20 DOT for touching on the hot AI narrative with OriginTrail.

With the Polkadot 2.0 roadmap unfolding throughout the year, 2024 ended with top-notch pieces centered on it. The White Rabbit once again engages us with his dazzling video skills, embedded in his long post offering a glimpse of the key milestones that shape the ecosystem, and was awarded 28 DOT.

Then, in similar fashion to the Spammening, Emil once again broke the rewards record with an outstanding 66 DOT for his wrap-up thread explaining Polkadot 2.0. We recommend new creators study his approach. Not only that, be sure to check out some of his feedback and advice on the Wag Discord.

Moving into 2025, Lily’s explanation thread on the JAM Toaster warms up the new year and makes 16 DOT. She also gets to taste 16 DOT again by cooking up a concise infographic reviewing Polkadot data for 2024. To top off, she served up another 17 DOT for a thread dishing out what Polkadot fixes in terms of scalability.

The White Rabbit started the year off with a stunning 3D video illustrating how the Polkadot parachains are interconnected. Many engaged and commented on how impressed they were, and in agreement with this, Goku awarded it an impressive 30.7 DOT.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again is what new Wag creator cocoxb has been doing. After multiple submissions and feedback, a couple of standout pieces emerged. The thread on explaining what Web3 means was rewarded a decent 14 DOT, while a tutorial on fiat on-ramping via HarbourFi earned a respectable 12.6 DOT.

When it comes to trying and improving, Ravi consolidated his breakout at the end of 2024 with two more strong submissions. Check out his thread on why Polkadot’s Nakamoto Coefficient number keeps rising, which received a like from Gav as well as 20 DOT. He outdid himself, earning 30 DOT with a highly engaged, 24-tweet thread that smartly recaps Polkadot’s 2024.

So, that concludes the recap of standout content generated through WagMedia. An astounding 57 pieces of content were submitted, excluding those still pending review. With news coming in about the Gray Paper version moving towards the testing and optimization phase, Gav’s Forbes interview exclusive, and his insights from the Vancouver meetup, that caps off an amazing JAMuary!

More content and hot takes are expected to follow in the wake of all this. Come JAM with us amidst all the noise from CT. Build up your knowledge by posting news, and work on engaging angles to create great content to stand a chance of being featured in our next update.

Wag Roundup (January 30th to February 5th)

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

DOT Ecosystem News

Written by yay.oi

• Gavin Wood has dropped version 0.6 of the JAM Gray Paper. This milestone implements a freeze on additional features as the project moves towards the testing and optimization phase.

• We all knew this was coming. 21Shares has filed an application with the SEC to list the 21Shares Polkadot Trust ETF on the CBOE BZX US Equities Exchange.

• Sunset Labs, a business development team focused on expanding Polkadot in Brazil, is the latest recipient of a Web3 Foundation Decentralized Futures grant.

• Kraken has relaunched DOT staking for eligible US clients in 37 states and two territories.

• Robonomics has initiated Snowbridge integration, which it hopes to use to bridge its ERC-20 XRT token to Polkadot.

• Hyperbridge has integrated with the Soneium mainnet, offering users secure and trustless bridging to all of its supported chains.

• Referendum 1339 has failed to regain control of the Parallel Finance parachain from its attacker. Moments before execution, the attacker added itself as a proxy and froze all available PARA tokens, leaving the newly created sudo account unable to send transactions. The attacker proceeded to unbond the remaining 200K DOT on Parallel, which is expected to complete by the end of the month.

• Nectar Protocol, a platform for anonymously and securely sharing sensitive health data between research teams, has launched on Moonbeam.

• Polimec is now supported by the Statescan block explorer. You can now track blockchain activity in real time and check DOT, USDC, and USDT assets. Additional assets, such as WETH and more are coming soon.

• Silencio has joined forces with Auki Network, a DePIN for machine perception and spatial computing. The two have begun a phase of collaborative research and development that will incorporate spatial modelling to enhance Silencio’s datasets, which could open up new use cases and data monetization opportunities.

• Silencio has launched Season 1 of its monthly Deep-in Luck raffles. Every in-app coin earned gains one ticket for the draw. This month’s prize pool includes 540M+ SLC and a Tesla Model 3.

• The DeNet Storage and Watcher Node app has been updated to v2.8. It brings new Watcher Node tasks, introduces stages for additional rewards, and offers the chance to earn a free Datakeeper Node reservation with every 60x battery pack purchase.

• Want to play a role in onboarding the next 100M users to Web3? Mandala Chain is now accepting applications to expand its ambassador program.

• Mobile MMORPG FúriusAO has just received a Web3 upgrade thanks to a new integration with LAOS Network. Players can now take full ownership of their loot, weapons, and crafted items through tokenization powered by LAOS bridgeless minting.

• Parity Director of Product Engineering Karim Jedda’s generative art collection Attractors is minting for free now on KodaDot. Only the luckiest mints will result in a stable and colourful design. In fact, some are coming out completely black, so you may want to try minting more than one.

• Ruthvik Reddy’s Fabrica Tessuta is a collection that generates artworks resembling digital textiles. A limited release of 32 mints is available on KodaDot now.

• Native BTC lending and borrowing are coming to Kylix Finance thanks to the support of Atomic Swaps powered by Mintlayer.

• In more Bitcoin news, the Hydration DAO has placed an OTC order for 15 tBTC, which should be launching on the Omnipool soon.

• Are you ready for even more liquid staking token liquidity? Bifrost is now connected to the Hyperbridge mainnet.

• Stellaswap’s V4 DEX launches on February 7th, offering lower gas fees, enhanced efficiency, and an array of new modular features. To continue benefiting from incentives, liquidity providers will need to migrate to the new pools.

• RegionXis requesting 90K USDT from the Polkadot treasury for Phase 1 of its common-good Coretime Marketplace parachains, which would cover deployment and development on Kusama.

• Referendum 1411 aims to relaunch the Polkadot Spanish Bounty, which focuses on content creation and events for the Spanish-speaking community.

DOT Ecosystem Events

Written by yay.oi

• On January 30th, Magenta Labs hosted a panel discussion on opportunities and growth for AI on Polkadot. It featured Branimir (Origin Trail), Suraj (Magenta Labs), Alexis & Alexandru (Gavun Wud), Bruno (PSG), and Leo (Neurolanche).
• Moonbeam hosted a grants committee call on January 30th to give the community a chance to meet the team, ask questions, and hear the latest updates about some promising grant applicants.
• Lead sponsor Polkadot made a strong impression at the CryptoXR conference in Auxerre, France, which ran from January 30th to February 1st. It featured a presentation by DonDiegoSanchez and community engagement led by Le Nexus at the Polkadot stand.
• At Ethereum Zurich on Thursday, January 30th, Dr. Christian Killer’s presentation explained how Acurast can provide affordable, decentralized, and confidential compute for AI model training.
• On January 31st at Ethereum Zurich, Alessandro De Carli presented Acurast’s mobile compute network as the solution to the increasing computational demands of the AI industry.
• ET, Moon-Bearer, and Grizzly got together on February 3rd to discuss the relaunch of the Polkadot Discord server, which is incentivizing community engagement with new earnable statuses and special gifts from TOD.
• DotNaija’s new X Space DotTalk Nigeria kicked off on Tuesday, 4th February. Tune in weekly for all of the latest Polkadot ecosystem insights.
• Regulatory Rewind is a new weekly broadcast from The Kus. In Episode 1 on February 5th, Parity legal team members Chrissy, Jamiul, and Eva gave a rundown of the latest developments in global crypto regulation.
• Mythical’s John Linden made his third appearance on Jon Jordan’s Blockchain Gaming World podcast on February 5th. He had a lot to share about what’s in store for 2025.
• Polkadot Africa in collaboration with OpenGuild and WagMedia present the Polkadot Abuja Meetup on February 7th, featuring guest speakers Bekka (Polkadot Africa), Kaioh33 (Dwellir), Sirjey (Polkadot Ambassador).
• The JAM World Tour kicks off again in Cambridge on February 10th. Join Gavin Wood as he showcases the JAM protocol. Richard Houldsworth, founder of local event partner Xcavate, will be in attendance.
• Polimec Crypto Nights is back in Zug on February 12th. Enjoy a night of networking and drinks featuring presentations by Bill Laboon (Web3 Foundation), Dominic Weibel (Bitcoin Suisse AG), Wilhelm Roth (265 Dots), and some updates on Polimec Evolution.
• NFT Paris, sponsored by Polkadot, commences on February 13th. More than 15 ecosystem teams will be in attendance, including Mythical, KodaDot, and Unique Network.
• Polkadot, in collaboration with Polkadot Africa,is sponsoring ETHiopa, which is running from January 21st to February 21st. The event includes a month-long education campaign, five-day hackathon, and Ethiopia’s first-ever Ethereum conference.
• Aventus will be hosting aspecial community-building X Space soon and is inviting community OGs to join and talk about what’s kept them engaged with the ecosystem for all these years.

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.