Kolkadot! (June 30th to July 6th)
While the Bitcoin sell-off has stolen the headlines towards the end of week, there was a period when Polkadot was top trending on crypto Twitter. In this week’s top story we will cover Polkadot’s treasure spending on KOLs and the immediate fall out from it.
With treasury spending raising eyebrows, perhaps it's a good opportunity to reflect on how treasury funding has been used in WagMedia to reward content. Our featured update in this week’s edition will highlight the standout content from the numerous bounties available to creators.
Overall, WagMedia places high importance on transparency, and our Director, Vampsy, publishes a monthly report analyzing various data related to the WagMedia mission. Our latest report, Volume 3, which covers up till the 24th May, has just been issued.
The full newsletter can be enjoyed via this link.
Dodow, Chief Editor
Top Story of the Week - DOT is trending
Written by yay.oi
It all started when newly appointed Head Ambassador Alice und Bob posted the Polkadot H1 Treasury Report. Spending is up considerably, particularly in the Outreach category, while Outreach spending in 2023 H2 was 1.3M DOT (7.7M USD), 2024 H1 spending was 4.9M DOT (36.7M USD).
Total spends for H1 2024 were a massive 11m DOT (87m USD)! According to the report, at this spending rate Polkadot has a two-year runway of funds remaining. Some have taken issue with the concept of runway here, arguing that the treasury is constantly replenished by inflation and thus could never go to zero.
That said, the Polkadot treasury currently has a war-chest of 38.2M DOT and 2024 H1 net earnings were -8.4M DOT. At this spending rate, the war-chest really would be depleted in approximately two years, leaving only ~2.9M of net revenue from inflation and fees per half year for treasury spending.
Opinions within the Polkadot ecosystem about the direction Treasury spending is taking are mixed. However, one vocal critic has decided to put it to a vote by initiating Referendum 936 to close Marketing Bounty 33.......….
Check out our full newsletter for the full story
Featured Update - Wag Content
Written by Sanchez
The recent debacle with KOLs and the Polkadot treasury underscores the importance of infrastructures like WagMedia, which prioritize producing quality work. The Polkadot treasury's funding mechanism allows for full proposal payments before any work is completed.
This often results in incomplete or low-quality deliverables, typically uncriticized, since payments are made upfront. The incident revealed that thousands of dollars were paid to KOLs who merely promoted the DOT token without comprehending Polkadot's current state and potential.
WagMedia's second funding request led to the creation of the Bounty Hub, focusing on cultivating quality content for the Polkadot ecosystem. Specific topics for content creation are provided, and the produced content is evaluated and rewarded based on quality. Feedback is given to help creators improve their craft and, in turn, enhance the overall content for the Polkadot ecosystem.
This initiative has been successful, producing captivating content around the Bounty Hub. Between May 31st and June 13th, six bounties were created, covering topics like the Mythical X Pudgy Penguins partnership, Polkadot's Heroic sponsorship, the Wish for Change track for defining Polkadot 2.0, Polkadot x Adidas, Snowbridge, and the FollowtheDOT tooling for tracking Polkadot transactions.......….
General News
Written by yay.oi
The Astar community has voted in favor of burning 350M ASTR tokens, which were originally reserved for crowdloan rewards.
Zondax announces the release of the new Polkadot Ledger app. Now available on Ledger, Talisman, SubWallet, NovaWallet, and soon Polkadot.js.
Apillon entered the final Remainder Round, but did not meet its funding target on Polimec. Participants will be refunded, and evaluators will have their PLMC tokens slashed.
With 250 applications, and 14 projects funded, the Web3 Foundation's Decentralized Futures program has come to a close.
Distractive launches the Ecosystem Resource Center, which provides marketing tools and resources for projects in the Polkadot ecosystem.
NFT & DEFI News
Written by Sanchez
Dot Play has been awarded a Decentralized futures grant. Dot play, which consists of seasoned gaming veterans, will develop a gaming portal to help onboard game developers, provide advisory and technical support and provide ecosystem tooling and partnerships to foster game development on Polkadot.
Enjoy triple farming rewards using Bifrost’s vDOT on Hydration. Provide liquidity, farm and earn HDX, vDOT and BNC tokens.
Composable Network, has halted after the expiry of their parachain lease. The team is taking steps to remedy the situation and bring the Composable parachain back online.
Bifrost has released a report on the abnormal movements of BNC from the treasury which saw 6 million BNC tokens transferred from the treasury to a private address. While most have been recovered and the treasury made whole, the team has reported that the protocol integrity is intact and user funds are safe and were never at harm as the incident was due to the exploitation of private keys.
Governance & Events News
Written by Sanchez & yay.oi
Read the report of the Polkadot treasury spending for the first half of 2024, with a spend of $86.5m with the largest chunk of $37m spent on outreaches compared to the lesser $2.1m spent on research. The treasury could potentially have a runway of 2 years at the current spend rate.
Oliver Tale-Yazdi submitted a Wish for Change to formthe Polkadot Tooling collective responsible for maintaining developer tools for general and dApps building on Polkadot.
Referendum 832 seeking to fund the Fellowship sub-treasury with 2 million DOT has passed. The fellowship can now propose funding proposals and approve more technical proposals pitched directly to the fellowship.
Referendum 936 is seeking to close marketing bounty 33, which is responsible for large spends in hiring KOLs and other marketing spends.
In London on Wednesday July 3rd, there was a real world event exploring Real World Assets in the Polkadot ecosystem. It featured presentations from David Bakk (Polimec), Richard Houldsworth (Xcavate), Shalydon Brown (Proof of Law), Tom Humber (Archisinal), and Sean Murphy (Impactscope).
On Friday July 5th, Polkadot hosted WebZero's Sacha Lansky, XyloDrone, and Roman Kemper to discuss all of the events they've got planned around Polkadot Decoded.
Extras
Awesome cover art created by Dodow.
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