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polkadot weekly governance report - subdaily

Executive Summary

Spotlight proposal

The Polkadot spotlight proposal for this report is the Grabber tool which is a governance incentivization tool that helps incentivize experts and leaders within the community to boost governance engagement and voter activity. Details below.

Governance changes

There are currently 13 proposals on Polkadot that were either open for discussion within the last 7 days, or currently up for voting.

Top 5 delegates

Applicable once Opengov ship to Polkadot

Spotlight proposal

The Kusama spotlight proposal for this report is the Runtime Upgrade v9420 on Kusama and v9420 on System Parachains which brings about several new features and updates to the system, such as the implementation of a new NFT 2.0 pallet on Statemine, and the addition of a new instance of the Assets pallet, called ForeignAssets

Governance changes

There are currently 15 proposals on Kusama that were either open for discussion within the last 7 days, or currently up for voting.

Top 5 delegates

No Data Found

Governance activity overview

Number of proposals

There are currently 13 proposals on Polkadot that were either open for discussion within the last 7 days, or currently up for voting.

Treasury vs Non-treasury

No Data Found

Status

No Data Found

Number of proposals

There are currently 15 proposals on Kusama that were either open for discussion within the last 7 days, or currently up for voting.

Treasury vs Non-treasury

No Data Found

Status

No Data Found

Reports and Interesting discussions

Polkadot

Viewing Party for Polkadot decoded

The Web3 Foundation has posted a guide for hosting viewing parties during Polkadot decoded 2023. The guide provides the community with steps to be taken in order to apply for and get funding to host a viewing party including resources like a template for the viewing party proposal and a google form which should be completed by June 7, 2023.

TeachMeDefi second monthly progress report

Teachmedefi has released their second monthly progress report with the introduction of an e-paper starter guide, marketing and social media strategies and more. You can check their report here.

Kusama

Polkassembly announce the launch of governance delegation dashboard

Polkassembly has announced the launch of their governance delegation dashboard This update ensures users can employ their voting power more efficiently than ever before. The platform offers detailed information about delegates, allowing members to perform a thorough analysis before casting their votes. User-friendly profiles provide insight into each candidate, presenting data including total support received, voting power, and bios.

This functionality enables community members to make informed decisions, whether they choose to delve into the minutiae of candidate profiles or prefer a rapid decision-making process based on high-level data. You can check out the dashboard here.

April report for supercomputing system’s proposal

Super-computing systems have released their April report on their proposal for the Maintenance of their substrate-api-client. As an alternative to Subtxt, the substrate-api-client is a Rust-library for connecting to a substrate-based node via RPC. You can read their report here.

Second report of Polkadot.study

The second report of polkadot.study has been published. Key highlights in this report include the integration of a new Docusaurus plugin, integration of tutorials and collaborations with substrat-in-bits.

You can read the full report here.

Approval of Opencommunity governance proposal

The extension of the openCommunity governance  audits initiated by Coinstudio has passed referendum vote. Currently, this initiative currently involves auditing proposals with plans to expand to more aspects of governance. The team is also actively onboarding additional proposal auditors.

Using bridged KSM for governance

Bryan Chen (founder of Acala) enquired about the community’s interest to launch a feature that allows token holders to be able to delegate their KSM on parachains, which could also include KSM derivatives like LKSM and tKSM. This aims to solve the issue of not being able to use KSM bridged to other platforms for governance activities. By implementing this, token holders can keep their KSM tokens in other parachains for other activities, while still being able to utilize the tokens for Kusama governance.

On-chain treasury proposals

Polkadot

P. #239

Proposal: Grabber tool

Details

This proposal is for a governance incentivization tool, that helps incentivize experts and leaders within the community to boost governance engagement and voter activity. 

The proposal’s primary concept is to form a decentralized group of competing experts who can review proposals, thus reducing the need for ordinary voters to deeply engage with each proposal. These experts, who could also act as vote delegates, would be minimally incentivized for their work in the spirit of public good.

Status: Gov 1.0 vote ongoing

Results

No Data Found

Brief analysis

The proposal’s primary concept is to form a decentralized group of competing experts who can review proposals, thus reducing the need for ordinary voters to deeply engage with each proposal. These experts, who could also act as vote delegates, would be minimally incentivized for their work.

This proposal focuses on improving the Polkadot’s governance model, aiming to increase community engagement and involvement. The main issue identified is the significant time and expertise required to adequately review and vote on proposals, which can be a barrier to participation for many community members. This is a substantial concern given that the success of a decentralized governance model depends largely on the active participation of its community.

The proposal introduces a novel solution to this problem: a decentralized group of experts who would review and analyze proposals on behalf of the community. This could help in reducing the time needed for individual members to study proposals while ensuring that decisions are still made based on expert input. The concept of incentivizing these experts through a reputation and bounty system is innovative and could drive further engagement.

The “Grabber incentivization challenge concept” is a particularly interesting aspect of this proposal. This concept combines reputation and monetary incentives to encourage members to contribute to the governance process. It could potentially improve community engagement and the quality of decision-making by incentivizing knowledgeable and committed members to contribute more.

However, there could be potential challenges with regards to measuring the expertise of reviewers and preventing conflicts of interest. In addition, the system’s complexity might increase, and it might be more difficult to understand for new or less tech-savvy members, which could inadvertently create a new barrier to participation.

The team’s experience and readiness, as noted in the proposal, is encouraging. 

Overall, this proposal presents a compelling approach to addressing a critical issue in Polkadot’s governance. However, it will be important to carefully consider potential challenges and complexities in its implementation.

P. #280

Proposal: Privacy Sidechains on Statemin*

Details

Integritee AG is proposing the development and deployment of privacy-preserving sidechains on both Statemine and Statemint, common good parachains on the Polkadot network. The company has previously worked on projects funded by the Web3 foundation and the Polkadot treasury, and now proposes to use its technology for practical applications like private asset transactions.

The proposal covers the first two phases outlined in Integritee’s recent blog, which emphasize the need for selective law enforcement access to ensure compliance with national regulations, and aim to provide privacy to the masses rather than protecting crime.

Status: Gov 1.0 vote ongoing

Results

No Data Found

Brief analysis

The proposal demonstrates a high level of technical sophistication, detailing plans to implement new features, allow token shielding/unshielding, ensure security, and perform public testing. Their deployment schedule is ambitious but appears to be well-planned.

 Integritee AG emphasizes the need to provide law enforcement access to the privacy solution to ensure compliance with national regulations, which indicates an awareness of legal and regulatory implications. They also plan a security review and a bug bounty program, underlining their commitment to security. 

The commitment to licensing their work under Apache2 allows for adoption and use by other ecosystem projects, fostering an open-source approach. They also plan to invite the public for testing and to introduce competition by allowing anyone to launch a competing sidechain.

Ref. #117

Proposal: Returning Supercolony lost funds back to the Treasury

Details

This proposal concerns a treasury allocation by the Polkadot Council that was awarded, lost, and then re-awarded.

In February 2022, the Supercolony team, based in Ukraine, requested and received 6,011 DOT ($128,000) to host an online event called the “WASM Conference.” However, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, the team had to leave their home country and reported losing access to the funds. As a result, they created a new account and were awarded an additional 6,011 DOT to host the conference.

Now, an account containing the original 6,000 DOT, marked as “lost,” exists, implying that the Polkadot Council has effectively paid twice for the same project. The ChaosDAO is proposing call the called balances.ForceTransfer extrinsic to move the original 6,011 DOT from the “lost” Supercolony account back to the Polkadot treasury.

ChaosDAO emphasizes that this proposal is solely about addressing the issue of “lost” accounts that have received treasury rewards and not about the Supercolony team or any specific individual. They also stress that approving this extrinsic should not set a precedent for future uses of the balances.ForceTransfer extrinsic.

 

ChaosDAO strongly believes that this decision should be made by the DOT token holder DAO, not retroactively by the council without community input.

Status: Failing

Results

No Data Found

Brief analysis

ChaosDAO is cautious about the possibility of setting a precedent with the proposed action. They clarify that the approval of this extrinsic (balances.ForceTransfer) should not be used as a basis for future similar actions without due consideration. The proposal seems to be grounded in principles of transparency, accountability, and efficient use of treasury resources. 

However, some might worry about the potential misuse of the balances.ForceTransfer extrinsic in the future, even with ChaosDAO’s caution against setting a precedent. Despite these potential criticisms, the proposal seems to prioritize the stewardship of the treasury, which may resonate with many in the Polkadot community.

Kusama

Ref. #182

Proposal name: Maintenance for the substrate-api-client May-23 to Jul-23

Details

This proposal is from the Supercomputing Systems AG team, based in Zurich, Switzerland, requesting 1,446 KSM ($40,920) for the maintenance and enhancement of the substrate-api-client from May to July 2023. The substrate-api-client is a Rust library that connects to a substrate-based node via RPC in a no-std environment. It’s an important tool that various projects in the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystem actively use.

The proposal is a follow-up of a previous maintenance project from February to April 2023, and the focus is on changes needed due to substrate updates. The team aims to maintain compatibility with the latest substrate updates, improve the library’s ease of use, optimize its performance, and provide support to its users.

Status: Passing

Results

No Data Found

Brief analysis

The substrate-api-client is a tool heavily used by multiple projects within the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystem. Therefore, its maintenance and enhancement bring substantial value to the community. Given its wide usage, improving its ease of use, performance, and compatibility with substrate updates could greatly benefit the community.

The team has a solid track record of contributing to the ecosystem since 2019, with previous grants from the Web3 Foundation and successful proposals for maintaining the substrate-api-client. This demonstrates their competency and reliability in delivering the project.

Ref. #183

Proposal name: OnFinality - High Performance Public Infrastructure (Q1 2023)

Details

OnFinality, a service that provides high-performance, scalable, and reliable public infrastructure for Kusama and Statemine, is requesting funding for their ongoing costs.

 

They have been providing a free public API service for the community, aiding in the growth of the ecosystem, supporting existing projects, and assisting in network testing by providing valuable data.

Status: Passing

Results

No Data Found

Brief analysis

The proposal from OnFinality shows a well-established service that plays a vital role in the Kusama and Statemine ecosystem. Their service provides a scalable free public API service that supports the ecosystem’s growth, helps to scale existing projects, and aids in network testing.

The proposal provides detailed statistics indicating strong performance and reliability. For instance, the 90-day uptime for Kusama and Statemine at the end of the period was 99.96% and 99.99% respectively.

 

OnFinality’s service is instrumental in lowering the barriers to entry for developers, thus fostering ecosystem growth. Their support for new networks and features to enhance user experience highlights their commitment to the wider community.

Ref. #189

Proposal name: Stakeworld maintenance of Kusama snapshot services

Details

This proposal by Stakeworld.io requests funding to set up and maintain RPC services and bootnodes for Kusama and Westend. In addition, they plan to continue maintaining database snapshot services for Kusama, contribute to the wiki with instructions on setting up bootnodes and rpc/wss, and maintain a node installer script and a database size history page.

Previously, Stakeworld.io had requested funds through the Infrastructure Maintenance Bounty, which has now ended. Hence, the current proposal has been routed through an Opengov request.

 

In Q2 2023, their nodes for Polkadot, Kusama, and Westend were included in polkadot.js, leading to an expansion of their infrastructure to match the higher demand. The present proposal covers the infrastructure for Kusama and Westend.

Status: Passing

Results

No Data Found

On-chain non-treasury proposals

Polkadot

Motion 403

Proposal name: Runtime Upgrade for Collectives Parachain To v9420

Details

This motion is for the upgrade of the Collectives system parachain to runtime v9420. The upgrade includes changes from v0.9.41 to v0.9.42, incorporating all migrations included in runtimes since v9380. The upgrade includes four runtime migrations for the relay chain.

The update is significant as it includes XCM v3 and the introduction of the Technical Fellowship. This corresponds to the launch of Open Gov on Polkadot, which is included in the Relay Chain runtime. The Fellowship will manage its membership and referenda voting on the Collectives chain and send its decisions to the Relay Chain via an XCM message.

The proposal is submitted as an external motion, meaning the final decision lies with the community via a referendum after the Council approves the proposal. The details of specific PRs included in this release are available here.

Status: Gov 1.0 vote on-going

Results

No Data Found

Ref #115

Proposal name: Three New HRMP Channels batch On Polkadot

Details

This motion is centered around opening horizontal relay-routed message passing (HRMP) channels between the Statemint parachain and three other parachains: BitGreen, SubSocial, and Manta Network.

HRMP channels are a way for parachains to communicate with each other in the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems. The motion outlines that for each of these three parachains, the following actions will be executed:

  1. A forced transfer of 20 DOT from the Treasury to the sovereign account of Statemint.
  2. The opening of an HRMP channel from Statemint to the respective parachain, each with an ID of 1,000.
  3. The opening of an HRMP channel from the respective parachain back to Statemint, also with an ID of 1,000.

Status: Passing

Results

No Data Found

#Ref 118

Proposal name: 1kvP Validators Initiative: Increase Validators Active Set to 400

Details

This proposal seeks to incrementally increase the active set of validators on the Polkadot network from the current number to 400, in response to feedback from the community. The plan is to raise the number by 5 validators per era for 20 eras.

The decision comes after referendum 112 proposed a jump to 500 validators, which sparked discussion among the community. The feedback from these discussions suggested two main points:

  1. There’s interest in growing the number of active validators but in increments to ensure network stability and security.
  2. The effects of the increase need to be analyzed to ensure no security concerns are introduced.

This proposal is seen as a way to allow for a natural leveling of the validator set as it grows, without compromising the security of the chain. The idea of incrementally increasing to 400 validators before re-evaluating has also been agreed upon by core developers.

Status: Passing

Results

No Data Found

Kusama

Ref #188

Proposal name: Increase Parachain Validators to 250

Details

This proposal aims to increase the number of validators participating in parachain validation on the Kusama network from 200 to 250. Despite having a total of 1,000 validators, only 200 are currently involved in validating parachains. To accommodate a larger number of parachain cores, the network needs more parachain validators.

If the proposal is successful, it will instill confidence in the potential to increase the number of parachain validators on the Polkadot network as well, enabling the support of more parachains on that platform.

Status: Passing

Results

No Data Found

Ref #190

Proposal name: Runtime Upgrade v9420 on Kusama and v9420 on System Parachains

Details

This referendum aims to upgrade the Kusama relay chain and Kusama System Parachains (Statemint/Collectives) to runtime v9420. The upgrade includes changes from v0.9.41 to v0.9.42, and incorporates all migrations since v9380. The proposal also highlights the introduction of several new features and updates to the system, such as the implementation of a new NFT 2.0 pallet on Statemine, and the addition of a new instance of the Assets pallet, called ForeignAssets. 

The Kusama system parachains upgrade notably includes the new NFT 2.0 pallet on Statemine, introducing numerous functionalities such as smart attributes. Another significant feature is the ForeignAssets pallet, allowing other parachains and eventually bridges to represent their native assets directly on Statemine. The proposal also introduces a new runtime API to query account balances, consolidating all fungible assets that an account owns into a single RPC call. This proposal is submitted on the Whitelisted Caller track, which means a parallel vote by the Fellowship is also taking place.

Status: Passing

Results

No Data Found

Ref #186

Proposal name: Remove lock for Bifrost swapped parachain id (2259 & 2262)

Details

Bifrost, a Kusama parachain that recently renewed its lease, is requesting community assistance to execute the remove_lock function in order to withdraw the previously locked 700 KSM. During the lease renewal, Bifrost registered two paraids and, after successful bidding, switched to Bifrost paraid 2001.

This referendum aims to remove the lock from the two registered parachains, paraid 2259 and paraid 2262, registered with the address J3dfxSNbUHwBbmB4My7DCgrNniQ227uTUNqqf4KB1DhyZkR

Status: Passing

Results

No Data Found

Governance metrics

Polkadot

Treasury status

The treasury is 4.7% down from last week USD-wise, but 1.1% up DOT-wise

No Data Found

No Data Found

Percentage participation

Applicable when Gov 2.0 ships to Polkadot

Amount of tokens locked in referenda

Applicable when Gov 2.0 ships to Polkadot

Kusama

Treasury status

The Kusama treasury is 8% down from last week USD-wise, and 1.3% down KSM-wise

No Data Found

No Data Found

Percentage participation

On average, there was around 1.1% KSM token participation last week

No Data Found

Amount of tokens locked in referenda

18,912.243 KSM tokens are currently locked in referenda on the Kusama network

Trends, Insights and other news

Polkadot

Web3go staking product

The web3go team has released a new staking product for carrying out staking activities.

The dashboard has already onboarded parachains like Moonbeam, Oak netowrk and calamari and they’re currently seeking feedback from the Polkadot community.

An Open Communication Layer For Polkadot

Subsocial, a key player in the Polkadot ecosystem, has identified a gap in the currently fragmented and Web2-centric communication methods within the platform. The shortcomings of the current system have led to an over-reliance on applications like Discord and Telegram and have even impacted user engagement with decentralized applications (dapps).

Responding to this, Subsocial has spent the past three months researching the ecosystem’s needs and developing the foundations for Polkadot’s Open Communication Layer. This initiative aims to migrate Web3 communities and their communication onto the blockchain, despite the friction of using such technology.

Subsocial’s proof of concept, Grill.chat, showcases the ease of on-chain communication. Notably, the platform simplifies the onboarding process, with a user’s first message automatically generating an account. Grill.chat bypasses the need for tokens, wallets, or constant transaction signing, thus providing a user experience comparable to Web2.

Importantly, these features are not exclusive to Grill.chat but form the basis for the OpenComm layer. Several projects are already integrating OpenComm-based social features into their applications, including Astar, Kodadot, Moonsama, Zeitgest, Polkassembly, RMRK, Ternoa, and Imbue.

The OpenComm layer aims to democratize governance discussions, with all dialogue taking place on-chain and being accessible to anyone. This approach will enable multiple governance platforms to connect to the OpenComm social layer, allowing users to access all governance discussions, regardless of their UI/UX preference.

Looking forward, the OpenComm layer has the potential to significantly extend beyond governance discussions. From NFT enthusiasts to sports bettors, users across different applications can engage in unified, on-chain discussions. This transparency also allows users to verify the trading history of anyone providing investment advice, enhancing trust and accountability within the ecosystem.

A detailed proposal on OpenComm is expected to go live soon. Subsocial invites feedback and encourages those interested in integrating social features into their dapp to get in touch. You can check out a draft of their proposal here.

Polkadworld follow-up proposal

PolkaWorld shared a follow-up proposal to continue its 2023 mission to boost the Polkadot ecosystem! From engaging articles to insightful interviews, 

Kusama

Discussions on impact-based treasury funding

Gabriel from Invarch raised the discussion on how impact-based funding could help improve the quality of treasury spends, using his proposal as an example. His idea is to incorporate milestone-based payments based on how well metrics are hit.

Another community member (Joakimeq) counteracted this idea with the fact that it could have negative impacts on more disenfranchised and non-professional grant applicants.

Another issue raised by Leemo was that there’s no way to tie impact to a specific proposal as there are numerous others whose efforts could also affect a particular impact metric. You can check out the discussion here.