PolkaWorld · 351

Is the Polkadot treasury no longer “paying for nothing”? VC Bounty will turn grants into investments!

Source: PolkaWorld Original Link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/yDhFNDto-ITEmuKfoXFVAg在 In Polkadot's governance and finance discussions, a new topic is rapidly heating up — VC Bounty (VC Bounty). Over the past few years, most of Polkadot's treasury funds have been disbursed in the form of “grants”: team proposals → voting → DOT support → product development. But there is a fundamental problem with this model: the treasury takes risks, but there is no return on equity. As HIC founder Max said, “Whoever takes the risk should enjoy the benefits.” With the upcoming launch of Polkadot Hub and the gradual tightening of DOT issuance, treasury funds will become more valuable. To achieve sustainability, the subsidy model is no longer sustainable, and a new financing logic is imminent. The idea of VC Bounty is to transform the treasury from a “funder” to an “investor” to share the long-term returns brought about by the project's growth through shareholding. In this live broadcast, we invited HIC founder and CEO Max and Mandala Chain co-founder Michael to discuss in depth from the perspective of both investors and entrepreneurs: Can VC bounties become a new funding model for Polkadot? What is the difference between public goods and commercialization projects? Why must the treasury change its logic from funding to investment? How do DAOs actually own assets off-chain? This conversation is not only about the treasury's financial efficiency, but also about the future of the Polkadot ecosystem. The treasury can no longer just “grant funds”; it must shift to real investment in Kristen: today our topic will focus on the “VC Bounty” proposed by HIC. This is a proposal put forward at the end of August, and it has also sparked a lot of discussion in the community. We'll explain to our listeners today: What is a VC bounty? What benefits can it bring to the ecosystem? And what are the main concerns raised by the community right now. I'm excited to have HIC's founder and CEO Max and Mandala Chain's co-founder Michael today. You guys are welcome! In the first part, I'd like Max to elaborate — what was your original intention in proposing VC Bounty? Max: The reason is actually quite simple. With the launch of Polkadot Hub, more projects will be developed on Polkadot in the future, and more startups will enter the Polkadot ecosystem, and these startup teams will need financial support. Recently Michael and I have been at the PBA in Bali, and over the past three weeks I've met a lot of entrepreneurs developing on Polkadot. There are always people who have various opinions about Polkadot. I usually invite them to visit the PBA to experience the active developer atmosphere here. If you talk to these developers and founders, you'll find that they love Polkadot and approve of the technology and ecology here. But at the end of the day, they still have to find a way to make money and survive. After all, any startup needs to be funded in some way in the early stages, right? The current state of Polkadot is that now many teams will go directly to OpenGov's proposal and say, “Let's fund us. We will develop excellent products, give us 50,000, 100,000 DOT, and 200,000 DOT, and we can make products and bring more transactions and users to Polkadot.” This is already the norm. However, from an investor's point of view, this is a bit strange: the team took money from the treasury, but did not return any equity to the treasury. Of course, they promise to “develop on Polkadot,” and the whole proposal is based on that promise. However, there is currently no mechanism that allows these startups to give shares to the treasury itself. This doesn't make sense to me because the more conventional logic of investing, whether in the Web3 sector or in other industries, is: Whoever takes the risk should enjoy the benefits. Obviously, investing in early-stage startups is fraught with risks, so if the project succeeds, investors should get a corresponding return. I'm not blaming anyone; the reason we haven't done this in the past is because there are no mechanisms. Because equity investment usually requires an off-chain legal framework, such as SA...

334d agoPolkaWorld#PolkaWorld

Gavin Wood reveals 5 new future directions he and Parity are exploring!

Source: PolkaWorld Original link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/23hgx9ucfsBCjbOMbQVITA今天给大家分享 Gavin Wood's final speech at the Web3 Summit! Gavin Wood suggests several directions of exploration that could reshape the future of Web3. This is not only an extension of technical details; it is more like a blockchain research outline for the next ten years. He said bluntly: Today's Web3 still lacks critical foundational capabilities, and without solving these problems, we can't really enter the era of large-scale applications. To this end, he proposed several strategic breakthroughs: Rebuilding financial privacy: creating legal and secure privacy protection tools within the FATF compliance framework. Proof of individuality (PoP): An uncompromising anti-witch mechanism, which he called “Web3's silver bullet.” Web3 Oracle: Replacing centralized services operated by foundations and individuals with decentralized oracles. Web3 Outpost: Bringing on-chain rules into reality and building autonomous communities and economies. Polkadot native stablecoin: It is necessary not only to have a protocol-grade stablecoin overcollateralized with DOT, but also to explore a new “stable-ish” system. These directions point not at a single point of innovation, but rather at upgrading the underlying narrative of Web3: from simple on-chain experiments to real-world institutions and economies. As Gavin said, these puzzles, if completed, would be a critical turning point in Web3's development path. Rebuilding financial privacy in Web3 In the second half of my talk, I'd like to focus on some of the new directions we're exploring in the Parity and Web3 world, the most important of which is privacy protection. The right to privacy is a right that most people should enjoy, and many countries' constitutions even clearly enshrine this. In reality, however, these rights are often overlooked, particularly in traditional institutions such as banks. Technicians' job is not to force people to make choices, but to provide them with the tools to freely and safely exercise their right to privacy. However, there is currently a lack of effective technical means in this area, and this is an area where improvements are urgently needed. Therefore, we are trying to develop specialized tools to help people protect personal privacy while ensuring that these tools are legal and safe for both providers and users. In fact, this type of technology has already been partially used in our “Proof of Personhood (Proof of Personhood)” system to hide the user's identity when issuing rewards. Internationally, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has issued relatively clear guidance. Although it is not a government agency, it is often viewed as having more influence than most governments. Many countries will follow its standards. As recommended by the FATF: • A single transaction under $1,000 should enjoy privacy, and KYC is required for more than that. • Individuals should also enjoy privacy with a daily transaction limit of less than $10,000, and KYC is also required if it exceeds it. These standards are actually very much in line with the everyday banking experience: you can usually take around $1,000 at an ATM, and you need to go to the counter; when it's over $10,000, you have to fill out the relevant forms. Therefore, we hope to establish the underlying primitives (primitives) of financial privacy, so that users can easily and safely enjoy privacy protection within these widely recognized limits. The portion exceeding these limits may require further careful treatment. Next, PoP, a new weapon against witches, we'll talk about individuality (individuality) and anti-witch attack (Sybil resistance). This is one of the toughest questions in the Web3 world. I've been researching in this direction for a long time. Simply put, I believe if Proof of Personhood (PoP) succeeds and becomes popular, it may be a “silver bullet” — a solution to a problem we haven't been able to overcome for over a decade. It has to fit the Web3 philosophy though, or else...

338d agoPolkaWorld#PolkaWorld

Boca Weekly | W3F and Gavin will participate more actively in voting on treasury proposals! Hydration TVL is over $400 million!

Source: PolkaWorld Original Article Link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_C6Rc2g0h2aAKB2HacYSug本周最重要更新，Gavin Live Highlights: Distribution route: Gavin clearly stated that it supports “hard pressure” (up to 2.1 billion DOT), decreasing every two years on Pi Day (13.14% based on remaining supply). First cut: 2026-03-14; if approved, the plan is incorporated into the v1.8.1 policy goals: The emphasis is on managing “interest rates” rather than nominal inflation; unify pool redistribution (verification/nomination/treasury/others) by decoupling issuance → interest rates → security through the “Revenue Pot”. Validator payments: It is proposed to use DOT-based stablecoins to pay validator returns; solutions such as Hollar can be used in the short term to promote “native, overcollateralized DOT stablecoins” in the long term (and explore stable-ish designs). Nominee mechanism: It is proposed to eliminate slashing and unbundling periods, introduce “zero risk interest rates” (interest rates are low but stable), and maintain the nomination mechanism to bring interest rates closer to real economic regulation. Validator governance: Introduce the Proof of Personhood idea to improve the transparency of identity and node declarations, require a certain degree of self-pledge, and reduce the risk of centralization and tandem connections. Treasury and Governance: After Gavin returns to CEO of Parity, W3F/Parity will vote more actively to establish spending committees and open standards, and move towards more conservative and strategic fiscal discipline. Product and path: Build not only machines, but also applications — Hub+ Coretime two-wheel drive; Parity will build the Hub into a “dual VM (Revm/PolkAVM) contract platform”, and will launch its own products to drive adoption. For more details, see the full Chinese version of “Polkadot Changes: Gavin Supports Hard Pressure and a Complete Reshaping of the Fiscal Expenditure Mechanism!” compiled by PolkaWorld In addition, in this live broadcast, Gavin Wood revealed for the first time his mission and direction after returning to CEO of Parity! He said he will return to the original intention from all aspects — Polkadot should truly reach the public and become a useful product platform. Parity is positioned as a product company that not only makes “machines” (Hub, PoP, JAM...), but also personally applies them. Future direction: Invest strategic capital and concentrate resources → Build a hub smart contract platform, incubate new scenarios such as Proof of Personhood, games, etc. Use the platform yourself + promote Gavin on both lines for users Teaser: New products will be released in the next few months! Learn more in PolkaWorld's latest article “Important! Gavin Wood shares his mission and direction after returning to CEO of Parity! This Friday marks Parity's 10th anniversary! Parity mainly served Ethereum for the first five years and Polkadot for the next five years! Now, on the 10th anniversary of Parity, it has finally opened the doors of Polkadot for Ethereum developers through REVM! Ten years ago, Gavin Wood and core developers brought EVM to the crypto world at ETHCore (now called Parity)! Ten years later, Parity finally allows every Ethereum developer to start over on Polkadot. Polkadot has been behind EVM's source code from the very beginning! If you're a Solidity developer and have had concerns about Boca — now, the launch of REVM has paved the way for you. You no longer need to adapt to a new language, understand Runtime, or restructure your account system. You can continue to use the tools, languages, and ways of thinking you are familiar with to build applications belonging to the next generation multi-chain ecosystem. Welcome to the Polkadot Hub! REVM is waiting for you to deploy the first line of code! “Parity 10th Anniversary: REVM Opens Polkadot Doors for Ethereum Developers!” This week's major developments: 500ms block generation is coming soon! Parity engineers said the feature has been developed and merged as soon as the end of the year, first...

348d agoPolkaWorld#PolkaWorld

When Polkadot's $500 million security cost becomes a burden, Gavin Wood offers three ways out!

Source: PolkaWorld Original link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/xLlnTgs9jUOkiHVI6g2euQ本文为 Chinese version of Gavin Wood's speech at the July Web3 Summit (Part 2). Due to the huge content of the speech, we will divide it into four articles and publish them one by one to make it easier for everyone to gradually understand and digest. Although the big information about Gavin at the Web3 Summit has been widely disseminated by the community, more details in the original article are still worth knowing! The first “Gavin Wood's speech: JAM delivery and medium- to long-term strategies for introducing ZK into JAM!” In the second installment, Gavin focuses on the economic woes of Polkadot staking: 1. The huge gap between $500 million in annual security expenses and meager revenue; 2. Staking rewards were sold off on a large scale due to tax issues, and staking costs continued to spill over; 3. To address this long-term structural deficit, he proposed three paths: increasing the value of Coretime — making the “products” sold by Polkadot more useful and attractive; reducing costs and reshaping the distribution curve — reducing annual costs from 500 million to less than 100 million; and exploring native stablecoins and proof of individuality (PoP) — optimizing payment methods and reshaping cybersecurity mechanisms while reducing security costs. At the core of all this is Fiscal Discipline (Fiscal Discipline), which is the key to Polkadot's long-term sustainability. Next, keep reading to learn about the second part of Gavin's talk. The economic difficulties faced by Polkadot staking Let's first bring the topic back to the cost of staking, which can be called fiscal discipline (fiscal discipline). One of the most intuitive numbers is: $500 million. That's roughly what Polkadot is currently spending on cybersecurity each year. In other words, Polkadot invests such a huge amount of money each year to keep itself safe. However, this expenditure did not match the revenue. The revenue stream is almost negligible, mainly coretime's sales revenue. And if this money continues to circulate within the DOT system, it won't necessarily be a problem. The problem is that we know that quite a bit of money is going outside of the system. The reason is simple — many stakers are in high tax jurisdictions. Take a live example: How many people have participated in the pledge? ——Almost everyone. So, how many people have paid taxes on pledge rewards? ——Almost everyone. Paying more than 10% in tax? ——Almost everyone. More than 20%? ——There are quite a few more. Over 35%? ——Probably one or two. So overall, pledgers are generally in the 20% to 30% tax range. By contrast, the mining situation is completely different. The mining industry is highly concentrated and highly institutionalized, making it easier to optimize taxes. Common methods include putting the mining machine under the name of an offshore company or using grey methods to unblock relationships. In other words, mining rewards are more likely to evade taxes through institutional channels; while pledge rewards are distributed to ordinary people distributed across various normal jurisdictions. The government finances in these places are tight, so of course they will not let go of any opportunity to collect taxes. Especially now, the financial situation in various countries is becoming increasingly tight, and taxing staking, which “looks like profits are being taken in vain,” has become a logical choice. As a result, staking rewards have almost become an obvious tax target. I'd like to ask everyone to think about a question: if you're paying taxes on staking rewards, how many people would be willing to specifically move to a lower tax jurisdiction to avoid this tax? The answer: there was only one person present. This shows that most people don't have a strong desire to relocate to avoid taxes. In other words, everyone's investment in keeping pledged assets within the system for a long time is actually not very deep. This is the problem, and it is also an economic dilemma facing staking. Of course, I can't assert that all staking rewards will be immediately cashed out. But we already know that a significant portion of rewards is quickly sold off due to tax pressure. Frankly speaking, I...

353d agoPolkaWorld#PolkaWorld

Polkadot Weekly | Grayscale Submits Polkadot ETF S-1 File! Gavin to Stream Latest Thoughts on DOT Economic Reform

Source: PolkaWorld Original link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/BcgMdUpAevhGTe5396e1NQ重磅! Grayscale Submits Polkadot ETF S-1 File! On August 29, Grayscale submitted an S-1 document for Polkadot's spot ETF to the US SEC — a step often seen as a key step before approval for listing (similar to Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs). https://x.com/EmilKietzman/status/1961544176354677151EVM Off-chain options! Parity announced: Kusama launches smart contract platform in October Polkadot launches smart contract platform that also supports EVM (compatible with Ethereum applications) + PVM (Polkadot native innovation) dual engines! Current progress in the EVM direction: Revm integration → Solidity contract works with zero changes, Hardhat/Foundry is available. The goal is to complete the first release in early September → full testing. Gas/Fee Model → Fusion of Ethereum Gas and Polkadot weight mapping, delivered in early September. Ethereum block storage → pallet-revive has been implemented, and Merkle proof is supported during testing. DOT accuracy upgrade → 18 decimal places, compatible with the ETH tool ecosystem, completed. Learn more in PolkaWorld's latest article “A New Paradigm Beyond the EVM Chain: Polkadot Smart Contract Platform Launches in October!” LATEST NEWS! Paraguay is tokenizing Asuncion Innovation Valley (AIV) through the Polkadot ecosystem. The project site is located in the capital Asuncion, with a total value of about 6 million US dollars. The project was tokenized by Paradata and managed through Moonbeam's white label platform Better Use Blockchain (BuB) running on Polkadot. Innovation Valley will build hotels, convention centers, universities, and data centers. Profit distribution is expected to be automated through smart contracts by year 3. With Polkadot + Moonbeam, the project will have cross-chain interoperability, scalable transactions, shared security, and on-chain governance capabilities. The project will be officially launched in the third quarter of 2025 and will be connected to global payment gateways and KYC systems. This marks an important step for Paraguay to combine tokenized equity with the real economy through Polkadot. https://x.com/Cointelegraph/status/1961074036772888739之前被 The Polkadot 2.0 Launch Party event proposed by Alice und Bob has been officially upgraded to Polkadot Builder Party! This is a 6-week online hackathon with the theme “Radically Open, Radically Useful” with a total prize pool of $30k! Developers are welcome to build applications based on Polkadot 2.0, parachains and related technologies. Hackathon launch time: October 6, 2025 Submission deadline: November 17, 2025 Learn more: https://forum.polkadot.network/t/polkadot-builder-party-global-hackathon-starts-6th-october-2025/14595关于 The exact time for Polkadot 2.0 to go live is here! Referendum #1721 is being voted on to enable RFC103 functionality in the relay chain's runtime. If the vote passes, the relay chain's Elastic Scaling (Elastic Scaling) feature will be released on September 8th (Monday,...

354d agoPolkaWorld#PolkaWorld

Polkadot Capital Group launches direct connection to Wall Street, W3F warns of inflation risk reduction

This week, the Growth Pressure Plan was replaced by the Medium Pressure Plan, which was a relatively less aggressive plan proposed by Alice_und_Bob and Jay after meeting and communicating. We've reorganized a comparison version, but I feel that Medium Pressure is no different from the previous Growth Pressure in terms of market capitalization pressure; it just took a little longer to reach the hard peak. So in the comparison between Hard Pressure and Medium Pressure, we can see: 1. Hard Pressure's annual sales volume initially declined sharply (blue line below); after 2052, or 27 years later, the annual increase was less than 1 million DOT. 2. The overall annual circulation of Medium Pressure is more flat (blue line below), and after 2052, or 27 years, the annual increase in sales was less than 1 million DOT. 3. At the same distribution ratio, Hard Pressure puts more pressure on the market cap than Medium Pressure. 4. Regardless of which plan you choose, in the future, after this proposal, we can adjust the pressure on DOT market value and economic incentives by adjusting the parameters of the distribution ratio. In summary, regardless of the plan, we can adjust how much “pressure” DOT market capitalization needs to face through two types of “pressure”: the first pressure is pressure from varying degrees of decline in inflation, and the second pressure is pressure to reduce the reward ratio for stakers. For specific data reference, please check the chart below. You can also check out PolkaWorld's live replay of this week's proposal for a more detailed explanation: https://x.com/polkaworld_pro/status/1958363607449870719或者查看 PolkaWorld's article to compare all current DOT inflation proposals. “If DOT inflation falls to 3%, how much will the market capitalization be to maintain cybersecurity spending?” In response to these proposals and discussions, Web3 Foundation research scientist Jonas Gehrlein notes that one key issue is being overlooked: economic security. Jonas believes that Polkadot's security does not exist out of thin air, but is based on validator and nominee pledges. In particular, those key validators at the “lower safety limit” rely heavily on inflation incentives for their safety. If inflation is cut drastically, Polkadot's economic resilience will decrease almost proportionately, and the network will be more vulnerable to economic attacks. In the worst case scenario (bribing existing validators), the cost of attacking Polkadot was only 14.71 million DOT, and if inflation were to plummet by half, this lower safety limit would drop directly to 8.18 million DOT, so the difficulty of the system to resist the attack was drastically reduced, and the risk increased dramatically. Jonas's policy suggestions: Minimum Commission & Minimum Self-Staking: Require validators to set a minimum commission (such as 10%) to guarantee their long-term earnings; require validators to have a minimum self-pledge amount (such as 10,000 DOT) to ensure “skin in the game.” The adjusted issuance structure currently adds about 280,000 DOT every day for staking rewards and 50,000 DOT for the treasury; overall inflation can be reduced by adjusting the ratio of the two rather than simply cutting. (Jonas here also confirms the importance of the adjustment ratios and parameters proposed by PolkaWorld in influencing inflation and market capitalization pressure.) Relaxation of the nominee mechanism to remove the reduction and unbinding period for nominees, reduce the risk of participation, and improve liquidity; even if the yield falls, users will still be willing to participate in the pledge to maintain network security. The declining inflation curve + total volume upper limit is designed to continuously decrease the issuance model, so that the total amount of DOT gradually approaches a certain upper limit (such as pi × 10DOT); cooperates with the destruction of coretime and transaction fees to make the economic model more sustainable. Jonas's core view is very clear. Simply cutting inflation = reduced safety; while cutting inflation + policy package = is likely to achieve “low inflation +...

362d agoPolkaWorld#PolkaWorld

HIC Phase II Fund: Bringing capital, applications and liquidity together to Polkadot!

Source: PolkaWorld Original Link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/0vblVUVXubzixdHgWUX9cg在 In the Polkadot ecosystem, there is a category of investors who not only “throw money”, but use capital to leverage application implementation, revitalize on-chain liquidity, and tell the story of the ecosystem to investors around the world. Harbor Industrial Capital (HIC) is one such entity. From the first phase of the fund established in 2022 to the second phase fund now supported by the Web3 Foundation as the first LP, HIC not only invested in star projects such as Peaq, Mythical Games, Mandala, and Xcavate, but also personally ran nodes, worked as LPs, and participated in liquidity pools to activate DOT assets. In their eyes, Polkadot is on the eve of a “Cambrian-style outbreak” — Polkadot Hub will soon be launched, JAM upgrades have yet to be priced by the market, and the potential for RWA, gaming, government services, etc. is “ceiling level”, and Asia is the next engine of growth. In this “Space Monkeys” conversation, the two partners Mario Altenburger and Max Rebol shared their investment logic, lessons learned, observations on the Asian market, and why Polkadot's funding narrative needs to shift from “grants” to “investments.” More than just investing: HIC Phase II brings capital, applications, and liquidity to PolkadotJay: You are preparing a second fund. Compared to the first fund, how is this strategy different? Max: The first phase is a pure private wood fund. The main investors are family offices and institutional investors from Hong Kong and other parts of Asia. And the second phase of the fund, the Web3 Foundation, is also an LP, and it is the first LP, making us a more “official” ecosystem fund. Of course, we will still bring in funding from outside agencies and family offices. Jay: Are there any changes geographically? Last time you mainly focused on Asia, will you expand this time? Mario: Actually, the project itself is global. In the first phase of the fund, we supported a total of 23 projects that won parachain slots in the auction, and also invested in venture capital projects, such as Mythical Games. The difference in the second installment is that there are no slot auctions now, so it will focus more on VC investment; at the same time, it will revitalize token assets and make them work in the secondary market, such as adding liquidity pools (like Hydration) to improve the liquidity of the entire ecosystem. This is part of a dual strategy. In addition, we also use tokens to deploy nodes. For example, on Peaq Network, we run two nodes to support the development of the project from the perspective of long-term holding positions. Jay: So you're not just investing your money, you're also actively operating your assets. Previously, Crowdloans were a good direction indeed. Max: Yes, we initially started with Crowdloans. Peaq Network is arguably one of the most successful examples. We supported them through a Crowdloan, and the returns have been great. It's exciting to have Peaq Network join the Polkadot ecosystem. Although Peaq doesn't stress much about being a Polkadot project in terms of the brand, they do use Polkadot's technology and DOT to buy Coretime. Jay: Yes, they're really cutting edge in technology. I saw that they were testing “elastic scaling”, and the block time seemed to be reduced to 0.4 seconds, which was amazing. peaq is a great example indeed. Mario: Yes, Mythical Games was also one of our most successful investments, and we have great confidence in them. They just launched their new FIFA game, which had 700,000 downloads within a few weeks, and was a huge success. We also invested in Mandala for the second phase of the fund. We helped them get a parachain slot last year, and now we're leading the way in their Pre-Seed round. We are optimistic about their layout in Indonesia — from government services (authentication, healthcare, transportation sector) to introducing private companies, which could be a disruptive change for Southeast Asia. They also...

369d agoPolkaWorld#PolkaWorld

Stablecoin issuers are moving towards “bankization”, Polkadot plans to launch a real Web3 stablecoin

Over the past 24 hours, the crypto industry has ushered in a new wave of action regarding stablecoins. Circle announced the launch of a new public chain called Arc, an EVM Layer 1 designed for stablecoin finance and asset tokenization, using USDC as a native gas asset and equipped with a licensed institutional validator targeting global payments, foreign exchange settlement, and capital markets. At around the same time, payment giant Stripe was revealed to be cooperating with Paradigm to develop the Tempo blockchain. Combined with the previously acquired stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge and wallet developer Privy, Stripe's stablecoin ecosystem is rapidly taking shape. Meanwhile, USDT issuer Tether is not idle, and is stepping up its own chain Plasma/Stable to further bind its dominant position on exchanges and the C-side. What these giants have in common is that they are no longer satisfied with issuing tokens on the existing chain, but they must control the operating rules of the entire chain themselves, and bring everything from users to validator nodes within a manageable range. Legislative catalysis: The “firing gun” for US stablecoins has sounded. If you want to find a point in time to explain the background of this wave of “self-built stablecoin chains,” the US “GENIUS Act” in July of this year is undoubtedly the key trigger. Signed by President Trump, the bill provides a clear legal framework for stablecoin issuance, settlement, and reserve management for the first time at the federal level. For companies like Circle and Stripe that already operate under a license and have close relationships with financial institutions, it's an open “passport” — the foundation for compliance is in place, and all that's left is who can take the technical foundation of the stablecoin business into their own hands faster and more thoroughly. As a result, we have seen that they all speed up their own chain R&D, and strive to complete infrastructure layout before policy dividends are realized. Stablecoins are sliding towards “bankization,” yet during the recent Web3 Summit and multiple interviews, Gavin Wood mentioned that stablecoin issuers are essentially banks. Like USDC and USDT, they are now becoming more and more like banks, and they are the kind of centralized banks that are highly regulated. Gavin Wood: USDT is an extremely regulated centralized bank! The more compliant, the more you deviate from the original intention?》 If Circle and Stripe build their own EVM chain, they're likely to become more centralized — not only at the governance level, but also control over transaction processing, validator selection, and compliance rules. Company-led chains usually put regulatory compliance and operational efficiency ahead of decentralization, which may mean: • Validators are licensed and not anyone can participate; • Strict KYC/AML requirements are enforced for all users; • Upgrades and rulemaking are driven by Circle's commercial priorities and decisions are highly concentrated; • Contract-level freezing and blacklisting mechanisms allow assets to be “suspended” at any time. Once most of the world's stablecoin settlements are monopolized by a few centralized institutions, the entire industry will face huge single-point risk and centralized governance problems. At that time, the so-called “chain” was more like an enterprise's own private ledger, only covered by blockchain. So, while it may still be “EVM compatible,” the spiritual kernel will gradually move away from the open, permissionless design of Ethereum. Some people think that so many giants are developing their own EVM chains to be good for Ethereum; the only benefits I see are that these giants will take away Ethereum's users and liquidity. These giants will only tell you that what is really valuable is EVM, not Ethereum or ETH. What will this bring? Of course, we're not denying that this is good news. After all, the influx of institutions will still bring more liquidity to the entire crypto industry, but at the same time, it also harbors a “crisis” and the next opportunity — decentralized stablecoins. Decentralized stablecoins generally refer to stablecoins that do not rely on a single centralized issuer, such as cryptographic collateral or algorithmic, in contrast to centralized stablecoins (such as USDT and USDC). Currently, the overall stablecoin market is over $250 billion, but decentralized stablecoins account for a relatively small share and are mainly active in the DeFi sector. What are the current decentralized stablecoins 1. Crypto-collateralized (Crypto-collateralized): Lock other crypto assets through smart contracts (...

373d agoPolkaWorld#PolkaWorld

The crisis of multi-chain architectures: Thinking from Cosmos to Polkadot!

Source: PolkaWorld Original link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/i-21DJ_EZg0rGjet2WN1VQ“多链架构”这个词在过去很长一段时间，一度被视为 The golden story of Web3: Every chain can expand flexibly according to its own needs, collaborate with each other, share security, and connect values to build a truly open and interconnected cyberuniverse. This is the story of Ethereum L2, Cosmos, and Polkadot. However, the ideal has yet to be realized, and the dilemma has quietly arrived. As we look back at the current state of development of mainstream L1 and L2 networks, a common problem surfaced: there are more and more chains, but users are not keeping up; technology is constantly breaking through, but the product experience is still far away; and the rapid influx of capital makes it difficult to accumulate sustainable value. Public chains with a multi-chain architecture have always been caught in a dangerous “incentive cycle” in the past: issuing coins, airdrops, pulling, shipping, and crashing. Short-term heat can be easily created, but long-term trust is increasingly scarce. The Cosmos crisis is not an exception; it is a microcosm. Once upon a time, this ecosystem was considered one of the best practitioners of multi-chain architectures. Through the path of staking ATOM → obtaining airdrops → supporting sub-chain projects, Cosmos once established the earliest and most active batch of “ecological flywheels” in the Web3 world: projects such as Osmosis, JUNO, Evmos, Celestia, etc. are all “incubated” under this mechanism; users actively participate in ATOM's staking (staking), obtain airdrops of sub-chain tokens, and further participate in the governance or trading of these new projects; project parties quickly attract traffic and attention through airdrops. Complete the cold start tasks in the early stages of startup. This “stake-to-earn+ airdrop” mechanism has activated the vitality of the Cosmos community in a short period of time, and has also enabled many projects to gain initial users and markets. The problem, however, is that the mechanism itself is not sustainable. As more and more projects “take off with airdrop,” airdrop gradually no longer represents long-term construction, but only a one-time benefit: users participate in staking only for arbitrage; project parties crash the market when the airdrop is completed, and there is no long-term incentive mechanism; ATOM's staking is diluted by high inflation, which damages the interests of long-term holders; the value of the sub-chain cannot feed back ATOM itself, leading to a “bustling ecology and sluggish main chain”. Eventually, when the market heat faded and the bubble of the airdrop economy burst, the ecology quickly moved from peak to collapse. From Evmos and Stride to Celestia and Osmosis, this “Airdrop Takeoff → Hot Sale → Crash to Zero” script was performed over and over again. This is exactly what we're saying: incentive cycle ≠ business model. The airdrop brings one-time attention rather than product retention; staking does not protect the value of the token, nor can it support the long-term survival of the project. Today's Cosmos is paying a heavy price for what seemed like a “value binding” growth path in the past: the core asset $ATOM fell by more than 90% from its historical high; on-chain projects such as Osmosis, JUNO, and INJ dropped by 70% to 99%; the crisis of multi-chain architecture, we cannot blame “speculators” for all problems. There is nothing wrong with the incentive mechanism itself; what is wrong is the project side's misuse of incentives and evasion of business logic. The problems faced by Cosmos also exist in more multi-chain ecosystems: sub-chain values are fragmented, making it difficult to form a unified return mechanism; native tokens lack usage scenarios and long-term inflation dilutes trust; the governance system is fragmented and the community lacks stable consensus; the airdrop economy destroys the long-term culture and harms builders; there is no revenue model to support user growth, making it impossible to form a closed loop of products. This isn't just a Cosmos problem, it's not just an L1 or L2 problem; it's a deep challenge that Web3 projects generally face: most projects only get through the incentive system, not the business logic. In any industry, healthy growth follows the same path: projects solve real problems for users; users are willing to pay for services; projects receive revenue and continuously optimize products; and form a sustainable positive cycle. This set of logic has been tried and tested over and over again in Web2, but it has become invaluable in Web3. Most projects have not yet taken the first step and are in a hurry to pursue the “market capitalization” of the second step. P...

376d agoPolkaWorld#PolkaWorld

Boca Weekly Report | Reducing DOT inflation is imminent, Kusama may launch a lightweight version of JAM

Community discussions on DOT inflation continued to deepen this week. In a live broadcast organized by Alice und Bob, all parties in the ecosystem expressed their views on DOT inflation! Some people think we should set a fixed upper limit and set a step-down inflation. They think this can push Polkadot into a “either generate revenue or die” state! Jonas of the Web3 Foundation also cautioned against sacrificing security in pursuit of Cap, and that DOT's “demand-side” fundamentals should also be considered. Check out the full discussion in PolkaWorld's latest article, “Face Up Big! DOT Tokenomics won't change, will you finish playing Polkadot?” PolkaWorld opinion: Should inflation be cut directly to 2%? We believe that everyone's discussions are reasonable. Generally speaking, we should open up resources and save money, expand on the demand side, and optimize on the supply side. Demand side: How else can DOT be used? Staking (staking) accounts for up to 50%, but high inflation has diluted DOT holders with safe costs. It should have been cut off. DeFi is seen as the most promising new scenario, and DOT released by falling staking rates may flow into DeFi protocols. Fees: The Polkadot architecture allows parachains to choose their own gas, causing high-volume projects such as Mythos and peaq to not directly feed back DOT. And we can force Polkadot Hub to use DOT as a processing fee! Coretime: Too many high hopes are placed on it. The goal is to cover network costs, but the short-term pressure may be high, and a “low price attraction → later charge” strategy may be needed. How effective the DOT ETF will be right now is yet to be determined! Supply side: Inflation and cap The current community plan suggests setting a fixed upper limit of 3.14 billion + stepped inflation falling, but the 20-year timeline is too long, and there is no sense of actual change in the short term, which can easily cause the community to lose confidence. PolkaWorld believes that if we want to achieve the “reset the game, or die” effect, we should just reduce inflation to 2%! The annual inflation rate is about 32 million DOT, which is 320 million US dollars in terms of $10/DOT, which is enough for cybersecurity. Or the upper limit should be fixed at 2.1 billion and step-down inflation to 0 in 5 years instead of 20 years. Give the community a real signal of change through “strong stimulation.” What's your opinion? Should Polkadot “cut directly to 2%” to break the pattern of interests? Therefore, we reviewed the development history of the public chain. We found that the rise and fall in token prices is only an indication, and the real transfer of power behind it often comes from the change of “bookmakers.” From the geeks and idealists of the Ethereum 1C0 era, to miners, DeFi capital, to Wall Street financial power after entering the ETF — every round of “changes” has changed the network's power structure and narrative. So, where is Polkadot's “Journey to Change the House”? Will it experience a similar transformation? Who will be the “bookmaker” of the next generation of DOT? Learn more in PolkaWorld's latest article “Should Polkadot reduce inflation to 2% and break the established stakeholder pattern?” Gavin proposed a discussion in the JAM Dev Group -- maybe we can launch a Kusama “lightweight JAM” first? Gavin said that if Kusama and Polkadot don't share the same JAM chain in the end, then Kusama can first run a smaller, faster JAM to become a “testing ground” for JAM technology. The lightweight JAM can be started with 32 cores (cores), which is much smaller than the JAM size of Polkadot's future versions (1023 cores). Potential benefits Lower operating costs (depending on Toaster test results): Assuming the PoP+ lottery mechanism selects validators, the network bottom cost is only about $6 million/year, and delays can also be significantly reduced by offsetting Coretime rental revenue: Although throughput will drop, faster block times will allow What do you think of the JAM app on Kusama being more “instant”? https://x...

382d agoPolkaWorld#PolkaWorld