Resilient Web3 - Newsletter Edition 94

wagwritersguild

Apr 10, 2025

In this week’s edition:

Editorial: Liberation vibes, a resilient Web3 can be realized through the Polkadot Hub, and recognition to the storytellers who bring attention to the vision.
Top Story DOT Hub: Amid the Web3 development debate, we provide some insight into the upcoming Polkadot Hub.
Featured Report - MARCHing on DOT: Recapping the content that has impressed since the last report in February.
Wag Roundup: News from our Finders Program between April 3rd and April 9th.
Extras: Credits and anything else.

The full newsletter can be enjoyed via this link.

Editorial

What is up, my friends!

The ongoing talk of trade finally culminated in Liberation Day, when the promised tariffs were revealed. The reactions going into the weekend suggest that the markets may not have expected the talk to actually take effect. Initially, it seemed like Bitcoin was largely unaffected, but at the end of the day, crypto, like other financial markets, is not immune to uncertainty.

While crypto markets went into the Monday bloodbath, the debate about Web3 development rampages on. Polkadot’s Chief Architect has voiced his opinions on X about the importance of Web3 values, which are underpinned by resilient systems. Gav also echoed this message on the Empire Podcast, emphasizing that there is a difference between Web3 and crypto.

Our top story this week covers much of the recent debate, and expands on what Gav had also touched upon regarding the upcoming launch of Polkadot Hub, which is fast approaching. As building a resilient Web3 can be realized with the Polkadot Cloud and Hub, this vision will be made even more accessible with a low barrier to entry when JAM eventually comes.

With the ongoing debate on who is contributing meaningfully to Web3, our featured report will touch upon those who create the content to make it more understandable. Hopefully, you can recognize the efforts of WagMedia creators’ contributions to this vision. Do subscribe to our weekly newsletter for the latest stories and updates on what's happening, or feel free to join in.

Dodow, Chief Editor

Top Story of the Week - DOT Hub

Written by yay.oi

What’s transactin’, daily users? This week, as the leader of the free world facilitates lower capital gains for all, our founder and chief architect is a little preoccupied with the diameter of dots.

Gavin Wood is not happy about the direction the crypto industry has taken. While the original ideals of Bitcoin and Ethereum were in alignment with the Web3 vision to trustlessly return control of data and identity to users, crypto is instead now rife with hype and speculation.

As explained in his Polkadot Blockchain Academy lecture this week, there is a growing divide between long-term thinking and short-term results in the blockchain industry. While others were taking shortcuts and fuelling the hype machine, Polkadot spent its early days quietly shipping the hard stuff.

The result offered the resilience pioneered by Bitcoin and the generality of Ethereum, but also brought the scalability that both struggled to achieve. That said, the parachain concept brought with it the expense of a very high barrier to entry, especially pre-Coretime, when competitive slot auctions required significant capital or marketing to attract crowdloan participants.

Furthermore, as described in WAG’s the JAM?, the sharded parachain model struggles to maintain optimum coherency between parachains. Now, a lot of us have caught on by now that JAM will solve these shortcomings and more in the future. In the meantime, the Polkadot Hub will provide an Ethereum-compatible coherent low-barrier Polkadot playground within months.

This week, Alex Dimes, the new Ecosystem Development lead at the Web3 Foundation,gave a progress report for the business development of Polkadot Hub that provided some intriguing insights. In fact, Parity is taking care of the technical side of things and has givenan updated roadmap....................…….

Check out our full newsletter for the full story.

Featured Report - MARCHing on DOT

Written by Dodow

After FEBing content, last month WagMedia’s creators continued MARCHing on with ~61 pieces of content submitted. Following review, 52 submissions were eligible for rewards, and a total of ~778 DOT was distributed, with an average of around 15 DOT achieved. This time round, there were 8 creators who met the average with content that stood out.

Before highlighting the standouts, it’s important to recognise that those who received lower than the average would have likely received feedback from Goku. To a certain degree, it can be more valuable. Furthermore, it is openly shared, with one common remark being to avoid the use of generic AI, because it tends to turn off smart audiences, whereas authenticity is what appeals.

The top creator for March was a tight call between Emil and Pieky, with Lily not far behind. Additionally, the month marked the end of the streak of month-on-month Wag rewards records being set. In any case, the record can be considered somewhat vanity, given that the amount of DOT depends on its market value at the time of awarding.

In terms of the highest amount awarded for a single piece of content, Emil received 50 DOT for his post, which received very high impressions, providing an update on the JAM toaster. Also performing in terms of impressions were his megathread on Polkadot 2.0 becoming a Web3 cloud and a long post about DOOM on JAM, which earned a solid 42 and 37 DOT, respectively.

For anyone new, you may want to consider quality over quantity to ensure you’re not just spamming your audience. That said, Emil did have a lot of other activities on his plate, such as the Polkadot Editorial Board, yapping on X and in-person................……...

Go check out the full update.

Wag Roundup