Presidot! - Newsletter Edition 83
In this week’s edition:
Editorial: Presidential vibes, Polkadot’s presence in the US, and Recap DOT memecoins.
Top Story - Connecting US with DOT: How is Polkadot positioned in the US now that we are under Trump’s premiership.
Featured Report - WUD is DOT memes?: With the surprise launches of TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins, we take a chance to look at the memecoins on Polkadot.
Wag Roundup: News from our Finders Program between January 16th and January 22nd.
Extras: Credits and anything else.
The full newsletter can be enjoyed via this link.
Editorial
What is up, my friends!
Heading into last weekend, excitement filled the air as many of the industry’s key players from the US gathered for the Crypto Ball. The event was billed as a celebration of the imminent inauguration of pro-crypto President Trump, as well as a forum to discuss the future of the industry in the United States.
While Trump himself was not in attendance, he certainly did not fail to stir excitement, surprising many with the launch of his official memecoin. Some of us overseas woke up feeling sidelined as its soaring popularity quickly pushed its market cap past many respected protocols.
The debate over what went down continues with mixed opinions, likely fueled further by the launch of a second memecoin shortly after. One point that most are in agreement on is that with Gensler out of the door, positive sentiment is building stateside. This week’s top story will explore the Polkadot initiatives that may help capitalize on the opportunity emerging in the US.
With memecoins in the spotlight, it's a good opportunity to recap where our predominantly tech-focused ecosystem stands on the matter in our featured report. As some think DOT is DED, so WUD promoting PINKness Mak Polkadut Gud Agan?
Dodow, Chief Editor
Top Story of the Week - Connecting US with DOT
Written by yay.oi
What’s pumpin’, TRUMPers? Presidential memecoins and first lady fan-coins suddenly became hot property last weekend. Now, the focus in the cryptoverse has rapidly shifted to the inauguration of Donald Trump, the self-professed crypto-president. Many are wondering what the future holds for cryptocurrencies in the US.
Perhaps to no one’s surprise, Gary Gensler resigned as SEC Chair on Monday. This paves the way for a new era of potentially relaxed crypto regulation, which will be initially led by pro-crypto SEC Acting Chair Mark Uyeda.
On the campaign trail, President Trump asserted his ambition for the US to become the ‘crypto capital of the planet’, but only time will tell how this vision unfolds. In this shifting landscape, the question now is whether Polkadot has positioned itself effectively to capitalize on these changes. With its record spending on outreach in 2024, let’s hope so.
One of the Polkadot treasury’s biggest spends in 2024 was the 968K DOT sponsorship of InterMiami (IMCF). The team has kicked off 2025 by debuting a striking new black-and-white Polkadot training kit.
IMCF benefits from the global appeal of Lionel Messi, but also enjoys the added advantage of Chase Stadium’s proximity to the Trump Mar-a-Lago resort. In 2025, why shouldn’t Polkadot seize the opportunity to extend an invitation to a member of the Trump family to the IMCF VIP Hospitality Suite?
While soccer has global reach, professional football (NFL) is by farthe most popular televised sport in the US. Polkadot also has a connection to the reigning Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs. NFL Rivals, built by Mythical and secured by Polkadot, is theofficial mobile game of the Kansas City Chiefs, who may have a shot atwinning a third consecutive Super Bowl this year...........…….
Check out our full newsletter for the full story
Featured Report - WUD is DOT memes?
Written by Dodow
When the incoming leader of the Land of the Free launches a memecoin days before inauguration, crypto naturally gets put into the spotlight. While most of the industry is still recovering from the fallout, whether applauding it or appalled by it, the inherent attention tied to memes is certainly playing out.
Meanwhile, the attention for those building on Polkadot tends to be more on fundamental Web3 ideals, centered around decentralization and the call for Less Trust, More Truth. That said, embracing a little meme culture now and again can help galvanize the ecosystem.
To appreciate where we are, it’s worth reflecting back on when the memecoin movement on Polkadot took off last March. It came at a time when the airdrop meta and frenzy of memes dominated the narrative. Since no memecoin had established itself on Polkadot, one could argue that the steaks were firing up.
The fire was lit with PINK, which has a remarkable origin. It started out as a publicity stunt that shocked and outraged OpenGov by requesting a hefty sum to promote pinkness instead of the tech. Funding didn’t materialize, yet the group behind it still managed to set an example that others imitated, including partnerships for the airdrop, an addictive game, an NFT collection, and more.
Fair to say, PINK is widely recognized as being the first memecoin to be established on Polkadot, at one point reaching a respectable market cap of 8 figures. Although things have cooled down, PINK continues to feature new games, more tournaments, and a multichain experience to extend its reach.....……...
Wag Roundup
Written by yay.oi
This week, a team from Parity released create-polkadot-dapp, a tool that promises to help you build your Polkadot DApp in less than 5 minutes.
Parity engineer Byte has dropped a new dashboard for the Polkadot and Kusama parachains, which displays real-time metrics such as TPS and KB/s.
Silencio, the first DePIN to launch on the Peaq mainnet, has scheduled its SLC token genesis event for January 24th 2025.
Given that Stellaswap’s V3 DEX contract does not allow for the adjustment of LP parameters in accordance with planned veSTELLA incentives, the team has decided to upgrade the entire DEX to Integral V4. While this will result in a delay to the launch of veSTELLA by a few weeks, it will bring a suite of new modular features to the DEX and a reduction of gas costs.
Minting of vASTR on Bifrost has continued its notable gains in January, this time surpassing the 80M milestone.
Lolmcschizz has initiated a discussion on Kusama OpenGov proposing that 33,333 KSM from the treasury be added to the Hydration Omnipool. This move aims to address the longstanding issue of KSM liquidity throughout the Polkadot ecosystem, which has forced many to resort to centralized solutions.
After hitting its 3500 new player target within just days, the Evrloot x KGeN Green January campaign has wrapped up. The top 5 players on the leaderboard will be the first ever to receive Companion Egg NFTs. Players ranked 6-25 will earn a set of Forged Citizenship Papers, while ranks 26-99 will have a chance to win one of ten remaining papers in a Discord raffle.
Mythical has announced the launch of the Telegram mini-app Football Rivals, built by Koni Stack. As it is powered by the Mythos chain, gameplay is compatible with existing NFL Rivals assets.
On January 17th, Polkaworld hosted a panel discussion about AI agents on Polkadot featuring Alexis (Gavun Wud), Leo (Neurolanche), and Branimir (OriginTrail).
Extras
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