Treasure this & DOT! (April 21st to April 27th)

What is up, my friends!

It wasn’t the greatest start to the week on Sunday 21st April 2024, at around late morning to midday UTC. A scheduled runtime upgrade led to Parachains halting, a comprehensive assessment of what happened can be found on the Polkadot forum.

While the incident was unfortunate, there did not seem to be any reports of significant damage. In fact, the network self-healed itself within an hour, nothing like the stories you hear of with outages for several hours or more on other major networks.

Perhaps the reality is that incidents can happen and no network can be considered fully immune. That said, the main thing is how they can resolve incidents efficiently, as well as limit them from happening in the first place.

Our ecosystem has a remarkable approach in place, there are no complex hardforks, testing can be done on a testnet, and configurations are baselined against our canary network. It would be fair to say most builders and users out there would simply treasure a setup like this.

We continue to treasure DOT on the path towards Polkadot 2.0, with the learning from crucial runtimes being executed on Kusama first. Furthermore, vital knowledge can definitely be gained from the recent runtime failure that delayed Coretime sales on Kusama, check out the postmortem here.

Moving on to exciting news, this week we have a couple of updates regarding WagMedia treasuries. Firstly, LAOS Network have announced their second bounty. The bounty focuses on the LAOS crowdloan, with a call to action that directs folks to their waitlist link.

You can potentially win LAOS tokens, but only after the situation affecting their crowdloan is resolved. Get yourself ready and join WagMedia today, if you wish to participate in bounties.

Update 29.04.24: LAOS wins the auction with a self-funded bid, to be fair they did announce that it was possibility.

Additionally, you can also expect to see bounties for PLMC tokens, as Polimec has become the latest treasury to join. Read more about what Polimec is about in our special profile report on them in this week's edition.

There’s certainly quite a bit of treasured news this week, and we shall be breaking them down in this week's top story. As per usual, we shall also summarize the news and updates brought to you via our finders program.

Without any further delay, let's get into our featured stories which we hope you will treasure!

Dodow, Chief Editor

Top Story of the Week - Treasure DOT!

Written by yay.oi

Wood morning friends! I hope you’re Gavin’ a great day.

This week saw the premiere of the A Glass with Gav podcast where Gavin Wood and Scytale Chief Investment Officer Mark Cachia sit down for a casual chat over a glass of fine whisky. In what can be considered a treasured setting, the two sit back with a glass of Japan’s finest and discuss the Polkadot topics close to Gav’s heart.

So, what does Gav treasure? From what was mentioned, he’s very much in favor of the fellowship, or as he calls them, the set of technical wizards behind the technical wizardry of an always evolving self-governing decentralized organization. Gav loves the fellowship so much that he wants more fellowships.

Similar yet much greater than the bounty system we currently have in place, the new fellowships would bring together experts in their respective field to influence matters. For example, business development experts would prepare a mission statement, and allocate funds to fulfill their goals.

In the meantime, rather than using his substantial influence to tap the Polkadot treasury, Gav has continued to direct funding for projects that benefit the ecosystem through Web3 Foundation grants. As a recent example, the 10M DOT JAM Implementer’s prize represents a significant treasure chest of funds.

Speaking of Polkadot treasury, Conor Daly, a recent recipient has continued to spread the good word about Polkadot this week. His Polkadot sponsored Indy 500 race isn’t until next month, but that didn’t stop him from wearing a baseball cap with the Polkadot logo to throw the first pitch at the Chicago Cubs MLB game.

You thought Conor was a great spokesperson? Things could get a whole lot Messi’er, as we’re in the final week of the Polkadot Big Spender Referendum #644. A whopping 968k DOT has been requested for a partnership with Inter Miami CF.

It includes training kit sponsorship, appearance on field perimeter LED boards, an exclusive social media series, and blockchain technology integration.

Inter Miami CF brings with it huge reach through co-owner David Beckham, and star player Lionel Messi. The partnership has been estimated to generate at least 300m impressions per year.

They’re not the only bigshots seeking a massive slice of the Polkadot treasury. In Big Spender Referendum #684 fintech heavyweights Chainalysis have requested 1m DOT.

Their proposal includes solutions for data, analytics, and compliance, promising to help Polkadot capture a larger share of the institutional market. However, they have yet to capture the trust of Polkadot holders and are facing significant resistance from those who have voted.

Controversial figure Giotto de Fillipi hasn’t been seeking any treasury funding this week, but he’s acting like he’s found a different kind of treasure. Is it a genie in a bottle? No, it’s the new Wish for Change track on OpenGov, and this week Giotto made three wishes.

His first wish is that individuals don’t delegate their votes for high stake referenda. He argues that due to the potential to significantly impact the ecosystem, only individual holders should be able to vote on the Root, Wish for Change, and Treasury tracks.

Thus far, many in the community have strongly disagreed with the proposal. Bill Laboon sees it as an unnecessary inconvenience to individuals that use delegation to simplify voting from multiple wallets. Alice und Bob sees it as an attack on small token holders.

Giotto’s second wish is to reduce the delay between treasury referendum confirmations and actually receiving payments. The proposal is to reduce the duration of the spending period by as much as possible.

Alice und Bob was quick to point out that it should already be possible to trigger immediate treasury payouts by using the spend() extrinsic. He immediately initiated a Small Tipper referendum to test it out.

The third and final wish is to reduce DOT inflation, as Giotto feels that it is excessive and discourages new users from entering the ecosystem. He suggests an arbitrary 2.1b cap on DOT because it’s a funny number.

While many in the community agree that a reduction in inflation could potentially benefit the ecosystem, not many are in favor of this proposal. One of the strongest arguments against comes from Saxemberg who points out that the proposal is an example of an individual riskily engaging in matters that significantly impact the ecosystem. Effectively a counterargument to the earlier proposal against delegations.

Giotto argued that it’s too dangerous to allow delegations to vote on the Wish for Change track. However, it’s far more dangerous to make potentially protocol breaking proposals without consulting with the relevant experts or considering any of the variables that maintain the delicate balance of the ecosystem.

Love him or not, Giotto is one of our treasures too. The new OpenGov Wish for Change track has a 20k DOT decision deposit. Without Giotto around it might have been a long time before someone had enough conviction (or DOT) to try it out, let alone three times.

It has sparked some lively debate, and brought some important topics to the forefront. Let’s just hope nothing gets broken!

The Polimec Pitch!

Written by Sanchez

The Web3 Foundation recently announced a groundbreaking initiative: sponsorship of KYC credential fees on Polkadot. Whilst on face value it provides a massive discount of 98% and 90% of the costs of KYC in two tranches, it's the importance and symbolic nature of what it enables which is significant.

Attestation from Deloitte offers users a banking-grade KYC solution, from one of the Big Four accountancy firms in the world. Tie this in with Kilt protocol’s issuance of such credentials, it forms a powerful one-time self-custodial verification, which can be used across diverse applications throughout the trustless environment of Web3.

When it comes to application, one of the most compelling use cases will be what Polimic offers, and it’s why the announcement also indicated their imminent launch. Polimec intends to democratize founder's and builders' access to capital, making fundraising seamless, accessible, decentralized, and transparent.

Furthermore, it gives individuals and institutions the chance to participate in funding rounds for Web3 projects. It embraces decentralization on a level different to most of the available solutions for projects looking to raise funds, which can often be gated and inaccessible.

Built on Polkadot, Polimec provides a secure and regulatory-compliant environment for projects and ordinary investors to participate in early funding rounds.

The interoperability of Polkadot allows integration with parachains and their respective ecosystems. For instance, projects on EVM-focused chains like Moonbeam can integrate Polimec, and in turn expand with even wider integrations with EVM chains like Ethereum (this is expected later).

Polimec’s PLMC token plays a significant role in its efficient functioning, and the protocol’s userbase comprises issuers, evaluators, participants, and stakers.

Issuers are effectively the founders and teams who intend to raise funds for a project. They make available information such as sale amounts, price, vesting schedule, expected launch time and more, on the project dashboard for all users

The project is then analysed by evaluators, who are users who have assessed the feasibility of the project, and in turn bonded their PLMC to support funding going ahead. Evaluators are rewarded or slashed to encourage sound research and fair valuations.

Other important nuances of evaluators, include, transparency with their social media details being shared, and “skin in the game” as the bonded amount of PLMC must equal at least 10% of the issuer's set target before the project can move to the funding round.

So once things are good to go, participants who are made up of regular retail, high net worth professionals, and institutions, can invest using the cryptocurrencies stipulated by the issuer.

The investment concludes if the funding round targets are reached, and evaluators are rewarded for their speculations. However, if the targets are not reached, funds are returned to the funding participants, and the evaluator's bonded PLMC is slashed.

For successful funding rounds, funding participants receive contribution tokens tied to the project. These contribution tokens are bound to the funding participant addresses and represent a participant's stake or investment in a project.

After the project launches, the contribution tokens are exchanged for the project's tokens in a ratio set by the issuer. These are automatically sent to the funding participant's wallets with no required procedures.

It’s important to recognise that issuers, evaluators, and participants must possess attested credentials from trusted third parties before they can use Polimec. And given Polimec is a parachain, stakers play the role of shoring-up the network, for PLMC token rewards.

With its imminent launch, there are already a number of prominent projects looking to fundraise on Polimec. Following is a brief roundup of some of the projects looking to get involved.

First up, Apillion is a Web3 development platform for developers and businesses building on Web3. They provide developers with tooling, SDKs, and documentation to shorten the go-to-market time of projects. You might have heard of them already, as they have been recipients of Polkadot treasury funding and have an active proposal for Milestone 2.

Next, and freshly coming off the back of a successful crowdloan to secure Polkadot blockspace is Mandala Chain. They are a hybrid L1 blockchain that is looking to be the gateway between global and emerging blockchain markets, connecting retail, enterprise, and governments.

Flying under the radar is Gotem, a Web3 platform for crowd investigations and security, connecting users with experienced investigators worldwide. Then there is ImpactScope, who deploy AI and Web3 tooling to help organizations measure, amplify and tokenize their sustainability achievements.

While Polimec can integrate chains on Polkadot utilizing Polkadot's interoperability infrastructure, there are plans to expand to other chains. By decentralizing access to funding and funding rounds, Polimec will change the face of fundraising, offering developers and investors decentralized and unperturbed access to fundraising opportunities in Web3.

If you are interested, first get a KYC credential, which has been wholly subsidized by the Web3 foundation and keep your eyes on Polimec.

General News

Written by Dodow

• Polkadot Parachains partly halted during the 1.2.0 runtime upgrade at block 20438530 on April 21st.
• Curio, an RWA tokenization platform with a Kusama Parachain, is now supported on NovaWallet.
• As part of Velocity Labs ongoing plans to make UX improvements to the Polkadot Asset Hub, the team is now working with Rampto bring an accessible fiat on-ramp capability.
• The CultureDot visual marketing force continues, as for the next six months Polkadot will be featured on digital signboards at Zurich International Airport.
• SubWallet reaches a momentous milestone of 1.2M installs, and it’s considered one of the most used wallets in the Polkadot ecosystem.
• Peaq Network provides an update on their airdrop to Krest holders, check out their blog article to find out about snapshots, factors considered, and potential bonuses via a liquidity lock-up.
• "Polkadut Netwerk fownder and cheef arkitukt" inspired memecoin WUD, fair launches on HydraDX with 1K of DOT liquidity.
• NovaWallet continues to support more tokens on Asset Hub, which now includes STINK and DOTA.
• Seun provides an update on Hyperbridge, and it’s estimated mainnet launch will be in June.
• The VARCH airdrop of 50m tokens to 75k holders has been distributed. However, there will be a delay with those staking DOT via StellaSwap,which is dependent on establishing XCM channels between InvArch and Moonbeam.
• Coretime Sales was delayed till April 30th, check out the postmortem of the runtime failure on Kusama.
• Developed by InvArch and formerly known as Saturn, Ominway is expected togo live on April 29th. Ominway will allow the management of multiple assets across multiple chains (currently limited to Moonriver, Shiden, Basilisk, and Picasso) from a multisig account.
• The Web3 Foundation is subsidizing 5000 KYC Credentials. Attested by Deloitte and issued by Kilt, credentials will be verified by Polimec for use in decentralized fundraising.
• MapMetrics, a drive to earn navigation DePIN, is set to migrate from Solana to Peaq Network.
• Want more exposure on your creations? Check out Subsocial's Grill, where there is now a new “Show Yourself” chat feature, which could help.

NFT News

Written by Dodow

• You can now play Beefy Run in order to earn your share of the 33% allocation of the BEEFY memecoin on Polkadot. NOTE: formally known as Wen Beefy!
• Expeditions are now live on Evrloot and to mark this momentous occasion, the team are doing a giveaway of a fabled soul.
• Phala continues their direction into AI contracts and are now set to introduce a proof of concept game to showcase it. Join the waitlist and be ready for Agent Wars!
• LAOS Network’s crowdloan opened with the opportunity to receive 100 LAOS for every DOT contributed. However, it is soon realized that there is an error, contributions are paused until the issue is rectified.
• With over 500 members and growing, Ajuna joins the Blockchain Gaming Alliance.
• Another NFT collection launches on KodaDot, as this week we see Julia Verzagova's generative art collection Aeroloom.
• New Zoombies World NFTs are now available on Moonbeam; and furthermore, there’s not much time left to win some rewards in the Bonez Tournament Pink Cup.
• Astar Degens holders are set to receive an airdrop of the Honey token, from Cult Bears NFT project.
• Through all the adversity, Code has finally done it as he releases v1 of Kusverse. Check out the cute baby KUs!
• After the fair launch of the WUD memecoin, it is said that Gavun Wud has handed the project to the community.
• Listen to the fifteen tracks written by the Kanary memecoin community, as you can now mint The Kanary Degen Empire Vol 1 RMRK based NFT album, on Moonbeam’s Mintaur marketplace.

DEFI News

Written by Dodow

• Stay liquid and participate in DeFi opportunities, as Bifrost supports LAOS’s crowdloan.
• Talisman dev Kheops has created a new front-end, which allows you to perform swaps on the Polkadot Asset Hub. You can check out the aptly named kheopswap, however, do be careful with slippage as liquidity is rather low.
• KILT is now tradable on HydraDX’s omnipool with an injection of 250K tokens via on-chain governance.
• Bifrost is getting ready for Phase 2 of its path to Tokenomics 2.0. This phase will see reward fees for vDOT go up from 1% to 5%, as this helps provide a sustainable source of protocol revenue.
• StellaSwap launches a campaign with a prize pool of $1500 for utilizing the new CEX onramp feature. More details on the different ways to participate can be found here.
• After a resounding 96% Moonbeam community vote in favor, Stink is set to be tradable on Stellaswap.
• Polkaswap's new Hashi Bridge to Acala potentially opens up more DeFi opportunities.

Governance News

Written by Dodow

• Giotto proposes that delegations to be blocked from voting, and has submitted Polkadot OpenGov referendum #702 on the Wish for Change track.
• Curio, an RWA tokenization platform with a Kusama Parachain, has integrated with Polkassemblyfor governance.
• Giotto makes a further proposal on the Wish for Change track with Polkadot OpenGov referendum #705, which is to reduce the wait time between referendum confirmation and payment. Alice und Bob responds by pointing out the new spend() extrinsic allows for immediate payouts, and subsequently initiated a tip to raise awareness with Referendum #708.
• Reducing inflation seems to have gathered some debate on another proposal from Giotto, check out Polkadot OpenGov referendum #706.
• Beamswap made a Moonriver governance proposal for 470K MOVR to be used in liquidity incentives for a year. Check out the tweet for more details on what the team are looking to build around this.
• DOTA, a project that focuses on inscriptions on Polkadot, now has governance on Town Hall.
• In a bid to rectify an error on their crowdloan parameters, LAOS have gone to Polkadot OpenGov with Referendum #716.
• You can now view and comment on OpenGov proposals using Subsocial's Grill.app.

Events News

Written by Dodow

• Coingecko hosted a crowdcast on April 25th, which featured a panel composed of Bill Laboon (W3F), John Linden (Mythical), and Ingo Ruebe (Kilt).
• Polkadotters hosts Seun Lanlege founder of Polytope Labs on April 29th to discuss Hyperbridge.
• Polkadot was a Gold sponsor of Southeast Asia Blockchain Week, which happened between April 22nd to 28th, in Bangkok Thailand. There was panelist representation from Moonbeam, Bifrost, and Talisman.
• Birdo moderates a panel to cover Coretime sales on April 25th, it included Bill Laboon, Seun Lanlege, and Phil Lucsok (Lastic).
• If you want to know “Wen Tanssi ?”, then check out the spaces AMA held on April 25th.
• Learn about Decentralised AI with a video reply of a session featuring OriginTrail on April 26th.
• Get your Polkadot coffee break fix, as Filippo hosts Talisman founder Jonathan Dunne in a spaces session on April 24th. Filippo was also on hand to answer your questions about JAMon April 25th.
• On April 25th, Oak’s Chris Li talks about blockchain automation on the Galxe discord radio show.
• Peaq Network hosts an AMA with MapMetrics on April 26th to cover their migration from Solana.

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.