The June Polkadot Technical Fellowship Call still has a huge amount of information. PolkaWorld compiled the highlights of the monthly live broadcast of the Polkadot Technical Fellowship hosted by Alice und Bob, covering the JAM protocol, Kusama and Polkadot system function migration, the next step of elastic expansion, the internal disagreement of the Fellowship, and the upcoming on-chain identity system PoP (Proof of Personhood).
Here are the important developments you can’t miss!
JAM progress: v0.7 is about to be released, and the economic measurement mechanism has entered the testing stage
Gavin said that he has been rewriting the JAM gray paper almost full-time recently (v0.7 will be released), with the focus on making the economic metering mechanism closer to the real hardware time. The new mechanism will draw on some of Polkadot's current practices and make JAM more realistic in resource management and cost calculation. It is expected that this part of the development will last at least one month.
Migration plan progresses: Westend AssetHub completed, Kusama/Polkadot time confirmed
Westend's AssetHub has successfully migrated staking and governance functions. This marks Polkadot's official transition from a complex relay chain to a lightweight relay chain architecture.
As of the time of writing, the Subscan block browser has taken the lead in completing the migration and adaptation!
https://assethub-westend.subscan.io/validator
The subsequent schedule is as follows:
• Kusama: Staking, governance, and balances will be migrated to AssetHub on August 15
• Polkadot Mainnet: Migration expected in mid-September
• The reserve location of DOT will be moved from the relay chain to the AssetHub, but the asset ID will remain unchanged. The parachain needs to update the XCM configuration path as soon as possible.
What is a Reserve Location migration?
The assets in Polkadot adopt a Multi-Asset model, in which each asset (including DOT) has a "reserve chain", which is where the asset is actually stored and measured.
Currently, DOT’s reserve chain is the Relay Chain.
After this migration, DOT's reserve chain will become AssetHub, but the asset ID will remain unchanged. This means:
DOT remains essentially DOT
It’s just that its storage address has changed from “main chain” to “system parallel chain”
Why migrate? What is the significance behind it?
This is actually a key step in the overall architectural transformation of Polkadot, with the goal of:
Minimize the role of the relay chain: The relay chain will focus on consensus and verification, and will no longer carry functions such as execution and governance;
Improve flexibility and upgradeability: AssetHub is easier to adapt to new features, such as localized governance, upgrade logic, and asset expansion;
Unified asset processing logic: In the future, all assets will be managed uniformly in AssetHub to improve the consistency of operations between chains.
What are the impacts on DOT holders?
Although the migration itself will not change the DOT you hold, its impact cannot be ignored, especially in the following aspects:
1. The wallet/app may have the problem of "unable to read balance"
If some wallets (such as Ledger and some light wallets) do not update the XCM configuration path, users may not see their balances or transactions may fail when transferring or crossing chains.
2. XCM cross-chain path will change
All parachain projects (Acala, Moonbeam, Hydration, Astar, etc.) must adjust the path definition of DOT in a timely manner, otherwise they may not be able to correctly receive or transfer DOT.
3. Increased user awareness threshold
Users are accustomed to “DOT in Relay Chain” and may mistakenly believe that their assets are “lost” after migration, requiring guidance and education from wallets and applications.
4. Potential trading and liquidity risks
If DEX or liquidity pool references the old path configuration, it may cause temporary fund lock or transaction interruption, and developers need to adapt as soon as possible.
What should developers do?
The Polkadot team has explicitly called on all parachain projects to:
Update XCM paths as soon as possible
Test the DOT usage logic of AssetHub
Check all DOT-related transactions and bridge services
You can refer to the Substrate documentation and Subscan's AssetHub page for adaptation.
This is not just a technological update, but also the starting point of ecological upgrading
Although this migration may seem “low-level”, it will:
Change the technical positioning of the entire DOT asset;
Improve the efficiency and flexibility of inter-chain interactions;
Reduce the complexity of the relay chain to make it more suitable for resource scheduling of JAM and Elastic Scaling.
For DOT users, you only need to make sure that the wallet or DApp you use can correctly identify AssetHub. For developers, it is an architectural update that must be responded to in a timely manner.
Elastic Scaling: The remaining work is being completed
Polkadot’s multi-threaded parallel execution function is about to be implemented, and the current finishing tasks include:
• Rewrite and refactor Coretime's new scheduling module
• Fixed compatibility issues with Polkadot-JS interface
• Improve the new scheduling data structure interface and publishing process
This feature is expected to be launched after the core module is reviewed, laying the foundation for JAM's future deployment.
Fellowship disagreements and salary disputes continue
Disagreements over work arrangements and salary payments arose within the Technical Fellowship:
• Core of the dispute: work transparency, contribution confirmation process, task assignment system
• Some L1 Fellows pointed out that it is difficult to verify their contributions at present, and some Fellows receive salaries but have no clear outputs.
• Suggestions: Add task lists and review systems, and explore mechanisms to link salaries on the chain
The role of Fellowship is evolving from “governance structure” to “technical bounty governance mechanism”.
PoP (Proof of Personhood) Progress
The new on-chain identity system PoP has entered the testing phase:
• Support users to obtain unique identity through mobile phone and biometric authentication
• Combined with OpenGov to achieve a “one person, one vote” governance participation model
• Technology is being advanced by IBP and is still under review, with the possibility of Fellowship overseeing its standards in the future
This will introduce a strong identity governance mechanism for Polkadot and solve the problem of "person-address" asymmetry in the voting mechanism.
Summary: Technology is advancing rapidly, and governance mechanisms are facing new challenges
The key word of this month is "structural transformation": Polkadot is no longer just a shared security system that supports parachains, but is gradually evolving into a general computing platform with JAM as the core and AssetHub as the execution site. These evolutions must be based on the adaptation of infrastructure and the evolution of community governance mechanisms.
Whether you are a developer, voter, parachain team, or DOT holder, these developments are worth paying attention to.
Conference replay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAZYyOI9K-U
