PolkaYaps! - Newsletter Edition 87

In this week’s edition:

1. Editorial: Rugged measures, yap about this week’s interesting ecosystem insights, and who’s yapping about Polkadot?
2. Top Story - DOT is Yapping?: what’s happening in the ecosystem that has gotten folks talking?
3. Featured Report - Who Yaps DOT?: who’s yapping about DOT?
4. Wag Roundup: News from our Finders Program between February 11th and February 19th.
5. Extras: Credits and anything else.

Editorial

What is up, my friends!

If we didn’t think retail sentiment could get any worse, rugged measures via a presidential memecoin scandal seem to have just set the industry back further. Thus far, the onchain evidence doesn’t look good, and it is probably best to KIP away.

Furthermore, after a caffeine-infused interview and subsequent article releases, more layers to this story have emerged. The meleeof signals, leaks, revelations, and whether it was promoted or shared has caused much confusion.

Elsewhere, confusion and intrigue deepened when it was noticed that a crypto/ic message was included with someone sending tokens for burning. Sometimes, it’s worth valuing something more coherent and resilient, which could potentially support passionate meaningful use cases.

With the explosion of yapping sparked by the Polkadot Yapper Leaderboard and prize fund, this week’s top story will continue to yap the hot news and interesting stories including reaching Consensus in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, we will be spotlighting who’s been yapping about Polkadot in our featured report.

If you’re looking for yaptastic advice, check out the awesome thread from Phunky. WagMedia is a great starting point for many, so why not subscribe to our newsletter or even join us!

Dodow, Chief Editor

Top Story of the Week - DOT is Yapping?

Written by yay.oi

What’s yappin’, PolkaDawgs? There seems to be a lot of new faces around here. While those of us at WagMedia are no strangers to incentivized content creation, rewards of up to $15K per month on the Polkadot Yapper Leaderboard have caught the attention of many. It has also begun attracting creators from outside the ecosystem.

With existing agents amping up their content and new arrivals competing for mindshare, Polkadot ecosystem tweets surged by 300%. However, Kaito’s AI-powered proof-of-attention algorithm ensures that it’s not all just white noise. To be successful, content needs to be engaging and capture the attention of the right people.

That said, a bit of face-to-face engagement goes a long way too. There were plenty of Polkadot boots on the ground this week at Consensus Hong Kong. The event was front-run on Monday by one of our greatest real-world assets Gavin Wood, for the JAM World Tour.

It was a full house at the Cyberport Arena, with Gav banging out some classics along with some newer material (courtesy of Shawn Tabrizi). For the encore, reminiscent of his iconic Web3 Summit appearance, he dropped a JAM coding live demo.

While JAM certainly has many excited, there are Polkadot developments much nearer on the horizon that even have Gav yapping. The general Consensus in Hong Kong at the Polkadot booth is that the Polkadot Hub and Cloud narrative is very effective.

Meanwhile, the official Consensus Hong Kong Polkadot ecosystem side-yaps came courtesy of local partners Polkaport East. It was another full-capacity event, with keynotes from Tommi Enenkel and Ziga Drev (Origin Trail), along with panels on institutional adoption and building on Polkadot in Asia.

All that yapping got you thirsty? It’s about time for a Hydration break. Our fluid crew have been working hard, pumping out referenda and news non-stop in 2025, and this week was no different.

Polkadot Hydration liquidity incentives are once again being adjusted. This time, it has been proposed to phase out incentives for INTR, and reduce incentives for CFG, INTR, and KILT, and launch new farms for tBTC and AAVE.

While liquidity incentives have likely contributed to increasing TVLs on Hydration, something more interesting is cooking. As you may have heard, since the Hydration money market launch, the vDOT looping strategy has been very popular.

Unfortunately, vDOT liquidity is not sufficient enough to handle the demand. This will soon change thanks to the introduction of drifting pegs in Omnipool stablepools.

Stablepools of virtually pegged pairs such as USDT-USDC and iBTC-WBTC utilize liquidity much more efficiently due to their near 1:1 trading ratio. In the case of vDOT, it cannot be pegged to DOT because it is an appreciating asset. The price will continue to drift higher as staking yields are incorporated into its value.

A dynamically drifting DOT-vDOT peg will solve this problem, offering a much deeper concentration of liquidity for more efficient trading. But why stop there? Hydration’s next plan is to bundle DOT, stake-yielding vDOT, and lend-yielding aDOT into gigaDOT, a yield-bearing token and triple-asset stablepool.

This will create a DOT liquidity abyss, which Hydration’s Jakub Gregus claimed in a recent AMA could improve the capital efficiency of the Polkadot ecosystem tenfold. Even if it falls short of that, Bifrost and Hyperbridge have got something brewing that could kick things up an extra notch.

In the first major Polkadot Treasury liquidity incentives proposal of 2025, they are requesting 795K DOT to incentivize DOT-ETH and vDOT-ETH pairs on Arbitrum, Base, BNB, and Ethereum. This drive to spread native DOT and vDOT across chains aims to foster the Polkadot interoperability narrative and facilitate decentralized onboarding without reliance on CEXs.

With protocol upgrades in Polkadot runtime 1.4, set for enactment on February 26th, we’re in for some substantial bridging improvements that will further strengthen these goals. On Snowbridge, this includes the introduction of Polkadot-native assets to Ethereum and ETH (finally unwrapped) to Polkadot bridging.

Furthermore, permissionless lanes will be opened, allowing parachains to connect to Ethereum smart contracts, enabling deeper cross-chain interactions. The timing couldn’t be better, especially with how Polkadot is starting to expand its reach across the Twittersphere.

In just two days following the launch of the Yapper Leaderboard campaign, Polkadot boosted its Kaito project mindshare ranking from 16th to 8th place. Meanwhile, Kaito’s separate Yap campaign came to an end, prompting some yappers to drop the façade.

For the more serious creators, however, the ongoing Polkadot campaign offers an opportunity to fine-tune their research, content-writing, and engagement skills all while aiming for some handsome rewards. Who knows, this could also lead to some fresh faces at the second round of PBA-X.

Fundamentally, this campaign goes beyond paid content-creation. New creators are warmly welcomed and funnelled into the community on X and the Polkadot Discord. Their fresh perspectives and broader reach outside the ecosystem bubble potentially help correct some of the misconceptions about Polkadot, as well as spread the word of its compelling technological advancements.

With new creators flooding in and expanding the mindshare, it’s also crucial for existing creators to push beyond the Polkadot enclave. At the same time, we welcome these new creators into WagMedia to offer them insights, feedback, and juicy rewards. This blend of fresh perspectives and seasoned voices can elevate creativity and extend reach even further.

In the meantime, keep on yapping. We’ve got a lot of stories to tell and a whole world that needs to hear them.

Featured Report - Who Yaps DOT?

Written by Dodow

Polkadot is trending on CT once again, with the yapping becoming almost impossible to ignore. Thanks to the launch of the Polkadot Yapper Board and prize fund, we’ve seen things take off. While legendary waggers like Csaint, Goku, and Emil assert their presence, it’s refreshing to see newer PFPs jumping in and yapping about DOT.

As of the end of the day on February 19th, 14 out of the top 25 yappers are new to the ecosystem. Let’s check out who they are and, more importantly, how they yap. Currently, the most prominent group on the board includes Wals, Zaimiri, Max Chadwick, and Pumpbob.

In fact, Zaimiri has already been in the top 3 for Polkadot mindshare. His rise is easy to understand; not only does he have ~948 smart followers, but he also values quality over quantity. In his endeavors, he has realized how much he had overlooked Polkadot and has certainly paid attention to the perspective of it being rollup centric.

Meanwhile, yapper-centric Wals, co-founder of a games platform and no stranger to other yapping programs, certainly sees the benefit of the Polkadot initiative. He brings up the view that we were clowned for spending $40M in 2024 but is now playing the long game with his ~480 smart followers.

Not all yappers need to have a high number of smart followers to make it up the board. Pumpbob, who is associated with a Web3 marketing agency, has done well with only ~28. He has also been quick to recognise how the community behind the world’s largest DAO can influence token inflation. Furthemore, he has also recognised the compelling impact of the Mythos rollup and seems eager to give it a try.

In his effort to try to make his content great again, Max Chadwick, who has ~300 smart followers, has decided to leverage the Polkadot initiative. He seems appreciative of the opportunity and has identified the top ecosystem agents to draw inspiration from.

On to identifying familiar PFPs across Web3 with the next selection of top yappers. The DeGods collections seem to be the most popular, with Sigrid, sporting his DeGods PFP, easily recognisable to his ~103 smart followers. He recently celebrated reaching the top 50 on the yapper board, a milestone that may have also contributed to his growth to 14K X followers.

Sigrid has been steadily maneuvering the leaderboard, offering some helpful advice on how to get started. Amidst the 3x increase of tweets about DOT, he seems to know a thing or two about the Polkadot benchmarks–though he still needs to realize that Astar isn’t the top NFT project.

From DeGods to Yoots, Vass, a Web3 marketer, certainly resonates with his ~217 smart followers. Inspired by the fresh approach, he makes sure folks know about the new rewards system as well as Polkadot 2.0.

On to the yapper with arguably the most recognisable PFP. Rocking an impressive MAYC, Mookie boasts ~1208 smart followers and is the founder of an initiative for discovering Web3 projects. Props for discovering that Polkadot makes sense, given the major upgrades on the horizon and the fantastic DeFi opportunities on Hydration.

Inspired by free money, Groomy the alpha threader is likely no stranger to anime, given the Azuki PFP. With ~108 smart followers, it certainly appears that Messari is on the reading list, which helps with an attempt at an “everything you need to know” thread about Polkadot. NOTE: posts are currently restricted.

When it comes to knowing Polkadot, one new yapper clearly gets it. By adding the bull and red circle symbols on his X profile, Fabsverse understands how to appeal to those entrenched in the ecosystem. Expect no less from a Web3 researcher with ~373 smart followers–he’s all about getting up close and persona. While price talk can be frowned upon, we can forgive him as he stands against the FUD surrounding Polkadot’s wallets and UX.

For those of us who also have the red circle in our X profile, you may soon earn a follow from another top yapper. With ~42 smart followers, Telcier is a hardworking family guy offering useful yapping tips. He also provides a useful breakdown of Polkadot 2.0 and shares some tips on Liquid Staking with Bifrost.

Perhaps you deserve a follow when you have the same name as one of our ecosystem favourites. The OTHER Mellow doesn’t let his ~65 smart followers get in the way and has been doing a splendid job identifying DOT ecosystem gems and top apps.

Also doing a splendid job and with only ~46 smart followers, there’s a challenge to make it to no 1 for one yapper. Massive kudos to Jossive for pointing out how to tap into Polkadot, as well as how things are being taken up another level with JAM.

Some of us don’t need to do much of a job yapping about DOT to make it high on the leaderboard. Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart, with just one tweet about the 21 shares Polkadot ETF filing and his ~2267 smart followers, quickly secures a top position.

For IcoBeast, strengthening his yapping position was a highlight that came after Polkadot introduced a post-TGE yap board, and he now stands at ~1704 smart followers. In fact, IcoBeast already has a partnership grant with Polkdot and has been ethically exploring and showcasing the ecosystem. That said, he was quick to acknowledge the positive approach with Kaito, in contrast to the methods of yesteryear.

So, that’s a wrap on all the yaps about the ecosystem newbies who’ve joined the ranks. Keep in mind, the leaderboard is constantly changing, and we apologize if we missed your favorite yapper. On that note, feel free to drop a comment to let us know who your favorite is! And of course, feel free to yap about this story.

Wag Roundup (February 11th to February 19th)

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

DOT Ecosystem News

Written by yay.oi

• Get yapping, folks! The Polkadot Yapper Leaderboard, powered by Kaito AI, is live. A reward pool of $100K will be distributed monthly to the top fifty Yappers starting on March 31st.

• The implementation of the Polkadot Unified Address Format (UAF) has begun and is live on Talisman 2.5. As parachains (such as Bifrost) complete the UAF rollout, users will be able to use the same Substrate address across all parachains.

• Polkadot Blockchain Academy is launching a new course, Blockchain Basics for Policymakers, the first of its kind. The inaugural program kicks off on April 6th in Zug, Switzerland, and will be attended by a delegation of UK members of parliament.

• The PBA-X Blockchain and Polkadot Fundamentals online course is now accepting applications for its second wave starting on April 14th.

• Entropretty, the app that will power DIM 1 Proof-of-Ink for Gavin Wood’s Web3 Citizenship initiative, is running an algorithmic tattoo design contest. Get your designs in by February 22nd for a chance to share in a prize pool of $3000 in DOT.

• SatoshiPay has received a Web3 Foundation grant for further development of its Vortex fiat ramp, built on Pendulum. The grant will accelerate work on a Polkadot offramp, expanding stablecoin availability on parachains via XCM, launching in emerging LATAM markets, and upgrading the Stellar-Polkadot Spacewalk bridge to remove the limitations of liquidity-locking vaults.

• Led by RockawayX, Borderless Capital, and Generative Ventures, Peaq’sincentivized data scraping DePIN Teneo has raised $3M in its first seed funding round.

• Polimec has integrated verification platform Sumsub to offer a new, free, and fast onboarding method.

• Big Water, a DePIN that incentivizes sustainable actions and delivers clean water to those in need, is building on Peaq. For each sale of its Web3-connected air purification device, 1000L of clean drinking water will be delivered to communities in developing nations.

• Acala, the first parachain to launch on Polkadot, has just surpassed the monumental milestone of 8M blocks produced.

• Crust Network has partnered with AI development platform AIxBlock to offer its decentralized storage solutions for the training and deployment of AI initiatives.

• Zeitgeist founder Logan Saether has stepped down from his role as CEO and handed the reins to co-founder David Perry. With this leadership change comes a deeper focus on futarchy, a governance model where policies are directed by prediction markets.

• There’s a new prediction market on Zeitgeist for the price of HDX reaching 0.015 by April 1st.

• Robonomics has released its 2025 roadmap, which will focus on its physical infrastructure layer and hardware development.

• Polkadex has announced a strategic partnership with Mindevolved, an Australian technology and solutions studio, to develop and deploy its new orderbook.

• Liquidity providers, rejoice

  
  your Stellaswap V4 pools on Debank and Rabby Wallet.

• The 25% rewards boost to celebrate the launch of Stellaswap V4 farms has been extended by one week.

• Swapping on Hydration got a little cheaper this week, with minimum dynamic Omnipool fees reduced from 0.25% to 0.2%, and minimum Stableswap fees down from 0.04% to 0.02%.

• Ledger support for Bifrost BNC tokens on Polkadot and Kusama is now enabled on Nova Wallet.

• Get flapping! Gavun Wud is back with another Flappy Wud airdrop. The leaderboards have been reset, and the top twenty flappers on Wednesday, February 26th at 9PM CET will receive airdrops of up to 10M WUD.

• In its first DEX listing, LAOS token is now tradable on Hydration.

• Introducing Boomerang, a new memepad and AMM DEX that will launch on Acala soon.

• On February 17th, Starscape, a generative art collection by Vectorz3ro, dropped on KodaDot and sold out within three hours.

• Hyperbridge and Bifrost have requested 795K DOT to incentivize DOT-ETH and vDOT-ETH pairs on Arbitrum, Base, BNB, and Ethereum in Polkadot OpenGov Referendum 1439.

• The Polkadot community has rallied behind Referendum 1425 with 300M DOT of voting power in yet another attempt to rescue 200K DOT from an attacker that has taken control of the Parallel Finance parachain,

• In an overwhelming show of support, a Kusama Treasury proposal to provide 33,333 KSM of liquidity to the Hydration Omnipool has passed with 100% approval.

• A series of three Hydration referenda have been initiated that, if passed, will reduce Polkadot Hydration incentives for CFG, INTR, KILT, and vASTR, and launch new farms for tBTC and AAVE.

• The launch of two new trading pairs on AcalaSwap, DAMN-ACA and LOVA-ACA, has been proposed on Acala governance.

DOT Ecosystem Events

Written by yay.oi

• On Friday, February 14th, Polkadot hosted an AMA for new arrivals to the ecosystem featuring Bill and Filippo (Web3 Foundation), Birdo (PolkadotApp), and Alice und Bob (OpenGov.Watch).
• Crust held its 39th monthly community call on February 14th to share all its latest developments.
• On February 17th, Pala Labs presented a JAM tour warm-up event with keynotes by Alice und Bob (OpenGov.Watch) and Zhou (PaperMoon), along with a panel featuring Dixon (OneBlock+), Patricia (OpenGuild), Phil (EasyA), Victor (Bifrost), and Kristen (Polkaworld).
• Parity hosted a Polkadot Meetup in Lisbon on Tuesday, February 18th. The theme of the evening was account security on Polkadot.
• Polkaport East and SNZ Holdings hosted the official Polkadot ecosystem side-event for Consensus Hong Kong on February 18th. It featured keynotes from Tommi Enenkel (OpenGov.Watch) and Ziga Drev (Origin Trail), along with panels on institutional adoption and building on Polkadot in Asia.
• On February 19th, Invarchheld an AMA about their upcoming launch and revealed that VARCH token will be listed on MEXC on Monday, 24th February, at 14:00 UTC.
• At Consensus Hong Kong on February 19th, Max Rebol (Polkaport East) hosted a fireside conversation with Web3 Foundation interim CEO Thomas Fecker Boxer.
• Nicolas (Velocity Labs), Flavio (Polimec), Matt (Mandala Chain), and Ziga (Origin Trail) discussed why Polkadot is the best place to build Web3 in a panel discussion at Consensus Hong Kong, on February 19th.
• Polkadot Africa, in collaboration with Rustaceans,is hosting a Rust workshop on February 22nd in Nairobi, Kenya.

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.