Wag Tricks, Treats, and Fireworks! - Newsletter Edition 76
In this week’s edition:
Editorial: Festive vibes, Spotlight on insights, Bifrost treasury partner, Inspirational.
Top Story - Sparking Inspiration & Pha-mazing Treats at the Mythical Party!: Themed highlights include inspiring Ethereum, Phala, and Mythical.
Featured Report - Wagtastic Tips & Tricks!: Find your way with The Wag.
Wag Roundup: News from our Finders Program between October 29th and November 4th.
Extras: Credits and anything else.
Editorial
By the time you read this week’s newsletter, quite a lot may have already happened. It’s that time of year when many of us are in for a fright. Some will be stepping away from their screens to celebrate the light, and the night will be filled with fireworks and parties as things culminate on November 5th.
With this theme in mind for our top story this week, we will Wag Tricks, Treats, and Fireworks! Polkadot is certainly providing tips and tricks, as well as some rolled-up TEEats. The mythical volume is rocketing up, and the fireworks certainly went off with the announcement of a Pudgy Party.
Meanwhile, last week’s feature update covered some nice insights about the rollups in our ecosystem, via the research from our Finders Program. In line with the festive spirit, this week our featured report will provide you with some Wagtastic pointers to get involved and push ahead.
Speaking of insights, we are proud to see our news roundup in the spotlight. Our mission has always been about unlocking the potential of the community, and it's nice to see their contributions being recognized. If you want to get involved, then our feature in this week’s edition is recommended reading.
For those who want to take it up a notch, then Bifrost returns as a treasury partner to entice creators to make some Waves. The Bifrost bounty officially starts on November 3rd, and there will also be an associated Talisman Quest to follow. We have also opened this bounty to those in the lingo lounge looking to produce content in their native language.………
The full newsletter can be enjoyed via this link.
Dodow, Chief Editor
Top Story of the Week - Sparking Inspiration & Pha-mazing Treats at the Mythical Party!
Written by yay.oi
Halloween costumes are a great opportunity for self-expression. They’re a chance to embrace your inner child, push boundaries, or step into your dream role. While you could stick with the classics like our very own TOD, who rocked a fresh take on the jack-o'-lantern look, it can be fun to ruffle a few feathers. For Luuu, that meant taunting a bull or two.
However, if you’re really looking to turn heads and get people talking, you could dress your protocol roadmap up to look eerily similar to Polkadot. This week, some in the community observed that Ethereum may have taken a page from the Polkadot playbook, opening up a lively debate about what exactly is happening here. Is it a case of appropriation, appreciation, or merely just convergent evolution?
Ethereum borrowing from Polkadot does make for a fun and memeable narrative. However, the proposals recently refined by Vitalik Buterin have been circulating for quite some time, so aren’t necessarily a sudden pivot, as some have suggested. Both Polkadot and Ethereum are both open-source projects that have similar goals. But Polkadot’s forkless nature allows it to iterate a lot more easily, making it likely to be first past the post on most occasions.
While there aren’t too many tricks going on at the Ethereum protocol level, Phala might complain tricksters in the Ethereum memecoin community are meddling with their TrEEts. It all started with the launch of their provably fully autonomous AI Agent tee_hee_he on Twitter.
Secured inside a trusted execution environment (TEE) for an initial period of seven days, tee_hee_he was given exclusive ownership over its Twitter and Ethereum accounts. It was then released upon the unsuspecting public, who immediately took a shine to it..…….
Check out our full newsletter for the full story
Featured Report - Wagtastic Tips & Tricks!
Written by Sanchez
Greetings, ghouls and goblins—it’s spooky season! As we gather around the cauldron, this week’s newsletter bubbles insights to help creators get started on Wag. There are loads of tricks and tips to get you started. But before we conjure up those details, let’s take a moment to talk about the magic of community.
Community is essential to any project. It brings together users, builders, and contributors who believe in the purpose of a project and are committed to its success. This sets community members apart from temporary contributors focused mainly on providing a service. At Wagmedia, a core goal is turning interested Polkadot community members into thriving creators.
Through WagMedia, creators can contribute via the Finders Program, which could potentially lead to a spot in our weekly newsletter. They can also participate in the Bounty Hub, retroactive content, reporting content, non-Anglo content, and more. Now on to what you’re here for–Tips & Tricks (TT) to get you started.
While newbies are welcome to join, they are expected to have some footprint and familiarity with the ecosystem. Recommended activities include: reading the Polkadot Wiki, joining Discord servers of ecosystem projects, attending discussions and AMAs, and following prominent accounts on X (such as the official Polkadot account). TT1 = be a part of the community.
After joining Wag, the Finders Program is an ideal first step for newer creators. The program involves the sourcing of news and developments around the ecosystem, ensuring creators become more knowledgeable. To learn more about the Finders Program, you should read yay.oi’s coverage, which provides in-depth insights. TT2 = understand your role as a finder.…….
Wag Roundup
Written by yay.oi & Sanchez
Dotlake has released their Polkadot insights for October. Thanks to Mythical onboarding over 5 million accounts, the total number of unique accounts on Polkadot has increased by 63% to 13 million. The Relay Chain validated a whopping 32 million transactions, almost half of them from Neuroweb. With the active validator set expanded to 500, the Nakamoto Coefficient has jumped to 136.
JAM Implementer's Prize candidate JAMdot Technologies announces that PyJAMaz, its Python implementation of JAM, is now producing blocks.
Mythical Games and Pudgy Penguins have announced the Pudgy Party mobile game set for release in 2025. The game featuring obstacle-dodging gameplay will be available on iOS and Android, allowing players to enjoy it with family, friends and others worldwide.
Holders of the Sovereign Nature InitiativeDOTphin NFTs canlevel up their NFTs to the third evolution stage, Naia, at sub0 Reset. The proof-of-participation NFTs can be leveled up by claiming new POPs at Polkadot ecosystem events.
Destore has updated the DESTORE token allocation ratios for its ISPO participants, offering a 2X boost for everyone involved, with the ISPO continuing into Q1 of 2025. They also recently shifted their reward model from an equity share structure to a system that rewards ISPO participants directly with DESTORE tokens.
Stellaswap is introducing veSTELLA, which brings significant changes to the platform. By locking STELLA, users can obtain veSTELLA, enabling them to vote on and boost emissions for specific pools. Different protocols can offer bribes to veSTELLA holders, incentivizing their votes. Additionally, veSTELLA holders will receive 83.5% of all trading fees on Stellaswap and 100% of all bribes.
The MYTH-DOT isolated pool has been hydrated, allowing liquidity providers to farm and earn up to 128% rewards in vDOT and HDX on Hydration.
Acala has partnered with derivatives infrastructure provider Fufuture to introduce Coin-based perpetual options to the network.
Following the approval of the Wish-For-Change Referendum 1139, which proposed reducing Polkadot's inflation rate to 8%. The approved parameters have been tested on the Westend network to confirm their effectiveness. A new referendum is now live, seeking to upgrade the Polkadot Relay Chain and Asset Hub to apply these parameters on Polkadot.
Members of the ambassador collective have submitted a proposal to implement their manifesto for the Polkadot ambassador program.
In the latest episode of Decentralized Mic on October 30th, Polkadot hosted Tommi Enenkel (OpenGov Watch) and Raul Romanutti (Just Open Source) to discuss all things governance-related.
Extras
Awesome cover art created by Dodow.
For all you budding creators out there, don't hesitate any longer – join us now! There are plenty of rewards awaiting your creativity.