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Today’s article comes from the latest English live broadcast of PolkaWorld. We invited 6 ecosystem builders to share the progress of their respective teams and Polkadot. The main content includes:
About the Team
Polimec: Full support for mobile terminals, allowing ordinary people to become investors
Mandala: Helping Indonesia’s largest province launch their Substrate chain
HIC: Continue to develop LP in Singapore and set up an advisory committee
Papermoon: Successfully tested running Uniswap V2 on PolkaVM
Acala: Acala dApp is migrating to version 2.0
Hyperbridge: Seed round received $5 million in support!
Coming soon! How Mandala is bringing Polkadot technology to Indonesia
The Treasury should distinguish between "grants" and "investments" and explore more sustainable approaches.
We should change our thinking to be "token-centric" instead of the current "chain-centric" model.
Users don’t care about decentralization at all? Hyperbridge believes that real competitiveness lies in decentralization
This year the main focus is on PolkaVM and Polkadot Hub
JAM will last 816 years? 👀
“Profitability” should not be the core criterion for whether a proposal is worth funding
Keep reading to see them all!
About the Team
Kristen: Welcome to our monthly wrap-up livestream! Just tune in to get a comprehensive overview of the highlights for April. This time we have Travis from Acala, Junius from Papermoon, Max from HIC, Michael from Mandala Chain, and Luca from Polimec. Welcome everyone! Let’s get down to business and have everyone introduce themselves and their projects. Let’s start with Travis.
Travis: Great! Thank you for inviting me to this roundtable discussion. My name is Travis, and I am responsible for business development and marketing at Acala Network. Acala is a DeFi hub in the Polkadot ecosystem. One of our main products is the liquidity staking product for LDOT, where users can stake DOT and maintain liquidity at the same time to participate in other DeFi applications. We also have a liquidity distribution platform called Euphrates, as well as some other new features. We have also launched some very exciting new content on Acala recently, which I will share later. Acala is an open network that is compatible with both EVM and Substrate, so no matter what kind of project you are developing, it will be easier to deploy on Acala.
Kristen: Okay, thank you. Next we welcome Junius from Papermoon.
Junius: Hello everyone! I am Junius from Papermoon. I am DevRel, which means developer relations manager. Papermoon does not work on its own projects. We provide DevRel services to other projects, such as Polkadot and projects in its ecosystem, such as Moonbeam and Tanssi. At Papermoon, my main responsibility is to maintain relations with the Polkadot developer community, and we also test new features for Polkadot. Recently, we have also taken over all the documentation work for Parity. In addition, I also participate in various online and offline activities on behalf of Papermoon. That's my introduction, thank you.
Kristen: Welcome to the show. This is the first time Papermoon has been on the show. It's an honor. Now, let's welcome Max.
Max: Hello, Kristen, hello, it’s great to be back on the PolkaWorld show. I actually have two identities in the Polkadot ecosystem: the first is the founder of Harbor Industrial Capital (HIC), a venture capital fund focused on Polkadot. We are currently preparing to raise the second round of funds, and I will share more details later.
The second identity is the head of PolkaPort East, a Hong Kong development project supported by the Web3 Foundation's "Decentralized Future Plan". It mainly organizes Polkadot ecological activities and conducts investor relations work. Many friends in today's meeting have also participated in our activities. It is a pleasure to see you again. Our activities include fireside chats, ecological gatherings, etc. In addition to members within the ecosystem, we will also invite external guests to participate. We are also doing investor relations construction to attract external capital to Polkadot, and we are also committed to promoting the real application of Polkadot-based projects in Hong Kong.
Kristen: Great, we are very grateful to HIC for its contribution to the Polkadot ecosystem in Hong Kong. These efforts are very important. Next, welcome to Michael.
Michael: Hello everyone, thank you for inviting me to the show. I have been a viewer of the show before, and it is really special to be able to participate as a guest this time. I also play multiple roles in the ecosystem like Max. My company is Republik Labs, and we are one of the largest blockchain media and research platforms in Indonesia. I am Australian, but I have lived in Indonesia for the past seven years. We operate the largest blockchain neutral community in Indonesia. At the same time, as an official Polkadot ambassador, I have been promoting the implementation and integration of Polkadot's technology in Indonesia and other ecosystems.
Then I am also one of the co-founders of Mandala Chain, which is a parachain that will be launched on Polkadot. We have also cooperated with many projects here, such as cooperating with Polimec to hold funding rounds, and also cooperated with Max. Mandala is about to be launched, and we will share more about it today.
Kristen: Welcome Michael, you have played many roles in the Polkadot ecosystem, shouldered many important responsibilities, and made many contributions. Now let’s welcome Luca.
Luca: It's a great honor to be on this show. Thank you Kristen for the invitation, and hello to all the guests. I will just say a few words here briefly and clearly, and I am looking forward to the discussion. I am the co-founder of Polimec. We are building a funding infrastructure for Web3 projects. In simple terms, it helps Web3 startups to fund efficiently. We use the Polkadot technology stack, which is the blockchain part of Web3 technology, to achieve a more efficient and compliant funding mechanism. I will also introduce it in more depth later, and I am looking forward to it.
Polimec: Full support for mobile terminals, allowing ordinary people to become investors
Kristen: Welcome, Luca. With Polimec, ordinary users can also become investors. We are very happy that we have six guests here today. Six is an auspicious number in China. So let's officially start the first part of today - April project progress review. Each guest, please share the most important milestone or achievement of your team this month. This time, let's start with Luca?
Luca: Okay, I will try to only talk about April, but sometimes the product is launched this month, but it actually took a long time to develop, and you may all resonate with it. For Polimec, the most recent big change was the discovery that our first two core assumptions were actually wrong.
First, "the number of users on the chain is huge and continues to grow", and second, "users are used to using wallets." But the reality is that we found that users are actually unwilling to understand complex concepts such as wallets and mnemonics. So what we are doing now is to "hide" the blockchain, that is, to transcend the abstraction of the chain and even achieve "wallet abstraction." Users do not need to know that they are using the blockchain, nor do they need to understand what a wallet is.
One of the major features we launched this month is full support for mobile terminals. As long as you use SubWallet or NovaWallet, you can complete the registration, KYC, cross-chain transfer, wallet deposit and other processes on your mobile phone. The whole process is smooth and natural, and users can hardly feel the existence of blockchain. What we have achieved is to lower the threshold and improve the experience.
Of course there are many follow-up plans, but this is an important step we took this month: not just for "on-chain users", but to allow ordinary people to smoothly enter the Web3 world and enjoy the benefits of blockchain without having to understand its complexity.
Kristen: I have seen that Polimec has indeed put a lot of effort into user experience, and being able to operate it with a mobile phone is already a huge improvement.
Luca: Yes, we are preparing to deploy asynchronous backing recently, which will take the user experience to a higher level. For example, the block confirmation time will be shortened from 12 seconds to 6 seconds. Although it seems to be only a small improvement, it is a qualitative improvement to the user experience.
At the same time, we have also migrated the entire front-end to the PAPI (Polkadot API) infrastructure, and we are very grateful to the PAPI team for their efforts. Their technology can make DeFi applications on Polkadot have a more beautiful and smooth front-end experience. With PAPI, we can access directly through the API, which is closer to the experience of Web2 applications. In this way, when users use the product, they feel like a normal mobile app, rather than a DeFi application that requires technical knowledge.
This is exactly what we want - to achieve true user adoption and make people feel more like they are using an ordinary mobile app rather than some kind of "DeFi mobile portal".
Mandala: Helping Indonesia’s largest province launch their Substrate chain
Kristen: That’s awesome! Now let’s move on to Michael sharing some of the big things that happened at Mandala in April.
Michael: Okay, thank you. Like Luca said, we are also doing something that has been in preparation for a long time, and finally in April it was officially launched and a press conference was held - we officially signed a cooperation agreement with West Java, the largest province in Indonesia, and helped them launch their own Substrate blockchain!
West Java has a population of 50 million, which is a big deal for us. Our Mandala is a parallel chain on Polkadot, and our ecosystem will include a series of "permissioned chains" controlled by governments or enterprises. These chains will be connected to Mandala, which is equivalent to our L2 role of Polkadot. The chain launched by the West Java government will be used for a number of government applications, such as data storage, security management, etc., which will be completely managed by the government, but in the future users can access it through our Mandala mainnet.
We have been working on this project for almost two years and it has always been one of the core tasks of our team. It is really exciting to hold a press conference in West Java in April to officially announce the cooperation!
HIC: Continue to develop LP in Singapore and set up an advisory committee
Kristen: This is really exciting because Mandala will bring 50 million users from Indonesia to the chain, which is a very important vision for the Polkadot ecosystem. Next, we welcome Max to share the achievements of the HIC team in April.
Max: Of course, I would like to talk about two aspects: one is fund raising, and the other is our newly established advisory committee.
Let's talk about fundraising first. As a VC fund, fundraising is definitely one of the most core tasks. We have been working hard to promote the vision of Polkadot. You may remember that we originally planned to ask Polkadot to sponsor a series of meetings so that we could attend some large investor meetings and show this ecosystem to traditional investors in the name of "Polkadot". But unfortunately, this proposal was not approved by the DAO in the end. But we did not give up and changed our approach. Now Mario is promoting this matter in his personal name. For example, he met with investors in Singapore this week. Although he did not appear in the official capacity of Polkadot and did not have sponsorship support, we still tried our best to promote the Polkadot ecosystem. I just talked to him on the phone, and the feedback was very good. Many traditional investors showed strong interest in Polkadot. I think this is exactly what we should do: take the initiative to go out and convey the value of this ecosystem. Although if there is sponsorship, we can put the Polkadot logo and give a formal speech on the stage, which will have a greater impact, but even without these, we are still taking action and the effect is good, which I am very pleased about.
Another progress is that we are setting up an advisory committee for HIC. We didn't actually set up an advisory committee in the first fund. Only Mario and I, two GPs, were responsible for all decisions. But this time we decided to adopt a more "institutional" model. One of the main reasons is that the Web3 Foundation will be our first phase of investors (LPs). So we want to make HIC a more mature and institutionalized fund, and one of the important steps is to establish this advisory committee. We are currently communicating with many senior people in the Polkadot ecosystem - they have a deep understanding of the ecosystem and have different perspectives, which can help us judge which projects are worth supporting and which directions are worth investing in. We are still in the selection stage and expect to have 5 or 7 advisory members (I hope it will be an odd number for easy voting and decision-making). Recently, we have had smooth and consensus talks with several potential candidates. They also recognize what we are doing: introducing capital into Polkadot and upgrading the operating model to a more standardized one. I can't reveal the names of these people yet, but I hope to announce them in the next monthly update. In short, this is an important step to further deeply bind HIC to the Polkadot ecosystem.
Papermoon: Successfully tested running Uniswap V2 on PolkaVM
Kristen: This is great news! We are looking forward to it because I think the role HIC plays in the ecosystem can just fill the gap left by OpenGov and Web3 Foundation, and this role will become more and more important in the future. OK, now let’s welcome Junius from PaperMoon to share his achievements in April.
Junius: We actually made a lot of important progress in April. I would like to focus on sharing the progress of PolkaVM and Revive (a set of smart contract modules developed by Parity). As everyone knows, PolkaVM will be launched on Kusama in the second quarter. This month, the main task of our PaperMoon team is to test the functions of PolkaVM on the test network (Westend).
We have completed compatibility verification for most complex smart contracts. Earlier this week, we successfully ran Uniswap V2 contracts on PolkaVM and all tests passed. As everyone knows, Uniswap is one of the most complex contracts in Solidity, which means that PolkaVM and Revive are 100% compatible with EVM and Solidity, which is very good news. During the testing process, we also fixed some bugs in Revive and PolkaVM, submitted many PRs to Parity, and the overall code base is becoming more and more stable. We are very confident that we can deploy PolkaVM on Kusama on time.
Another progress is that we are preparing documents, such as how to deploy and test Solidity contracts. We have also created multiple project templates on GitHub, such as the Remix template and the Hardhat template. Developers only need to clone the template and add their own code to run tests directly on PolkaVM. This is a major benefit for Solidity developers - they almost don't need to learn anything new, and can directly use the resources we provide to develop in the Polkadot ecosystem.
We are also working on education. We have launched an introductory course on PolkaVM for Solidity developers since last month, and we have over 200 students signed up. We are also planning to host a small online hackathon for them to practice and win prizes. We have about 80 students signed up, and we expect to review and announce the winning projects next month. It has been a very exciting month, thank you!
Kristen: Okay. You just mentioned the test performance of PolkaVM. I saw some people say that PVM is 20 times or even 50 times faster than EVM. Is this true?
Junius: Yes, this is true. However, our current focus is still on functional testing, and we have not yet done performance testing specifically, but we will conduct evaluations in this regard later.
Kristen: Okay, you just mentioned that PVM will be deployed in the second quarter. Will it be deployed on Polkadot or Kusama?
Junius: It is on Kusama and will be launched this quarter. Polkadot will be launched in the third quarter.
Acala: Acala dApp is migrating to version 2.0
Kristen: Okay, great, thank you! Now let's welcome Travis from Acala. Any recent important developments at Acala that you can share?
Travis: There are a lot of exciting things happening at Acala recently. I think the biggest one is that our Meme and dApp Development Competition has entered its third month, which is the midpoint of the entire six-month competition. We plan to pause for a while at the midpoint. This competition is mainly to encourage anyone to deploy dApps on Acala EVM, and we are actively expanding this ecosystem. There are already many developers and community members participating. If you are a member of the meme community, you can also bring your community to participate.
On the other hand, our Acala dApp is also migrating to version 2.0, with a focus on improving the user experience. We will add a lot of small features that everyone thinks are necessary, such as night mode, notification function, better user interface, interface for viewing portfolios, process for sending assets, etc. Some 2.0 features are already online, and we are also making final adjustments. In general, our core goal is to make users experience better and smoother on the Acala network.
Hyperbridge: Seed round received $5 million in support!
Kristen: OK, thank you. Now I see Seun has joined us, welcome, Seun! How is it going over there?
Seun: I just came from the event and I am sweating all over. But the overall atmosphere is great, I feel like the bull market is back, the whole venue is packed, it's really crazy.
Kristen: Wow, I wish I could check it out. What are some of the key accomplishments or milestones your team has achieved this month? Before that, you can also briefly introduce yourself and your project.
Seun: Of course, thank you, Kristen. My name is Seun Lanlege, and I'm the co-founder of Polytope Labs. We are the development team of Hyperbridge. Hyperbridge is a secure, decentralized cross-chain messaging protocol that allows developers to build truly mission-critical cross-chain applications. We are now live on the mainnet and have connected to multiple chains, such as Bifrost, BNB chain, Ethereum L2 network, and Ethereum mainnet. Our protocol not only supports cross-chain messaging, but also supports asset transfers between different networks.
To summarize some of our recent progress: We have just completed the public funding round, with more than 2.8 million US dollars. We also received an investment of 2.5 million US dollars from the Polkadot Ecosystem Fund. In total, our seed round has received 5 million US dollars of support. This is a very exciting journey for us. After all, we have been building Hyperbridge for nearly two years, and we are very grateful for the community's continued support and trust. We will continue to work hard to provide the most cutting-edge cross-chain experience.
Another important milestone is that we are about to launch a feature called "Intent Gateway". This is a front-end application officially developed by Polytope Labs, based on the Hyperbridge protocol, which supports users to perform general cross-chain transfers of ERC-20 assets. You will soon be able to use it to transfer ETH, WETH, USDC, USDT and other tokens across multiple chains, and even implement cross-chain token swaps through "solvers". We are currently working with some existing solvers, such as Sprinter launched by ChainSafe, who will provide us with technical support, and other partners are also in talks. We will continue to update the progress in the future. This is a very exciting new stage for us.
Kristen: Great, I see that your public funding round has been completed. Does that mean that all users who participated in the crowdfunding must complete KYC within the specified time, otherwise they will miss this opportunity?
Seun: Yes, we have set a KYC deadline, which is today. This is part of the regulatory compliance. We have completed the KYC process for more than 90% of the funds, but some small investors who did not read the terms carefully may have their funds returned due to delays.
Coming soon! How Mandala is bringing Polkadot technology to Indonesia
Kristen: As we all know, Indonesia is a vibrant, beautiful country with over 150 million people. What do you think is driving the rapid growth of Web3 adoption in Indonesia, Michael?
Michael: Actually, Indonesia’s population is 280 million, not 150 million, haha. So the base number is actually larger. I think the main reason for the rapid growth is that Indonesia is a "mobile-first" society. For example, data from our own platform shows that in the first quarter of 2025 alone, our user engagement and visits increased by approximately 50% compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. This is very remarkable. And Indonesia itself is also a very “token-friendly” society. I'm not talking about cryptocurrency projects here, but for example, you go to a company to buy their points, and then use these points to consume within this closed-loop system, such as ordering takeout, recharging your phone bill, or surfing the Internet. This "points" system is very similar to the crypto token economic model, the only difference is that it is centralized.
So, when people first come into contact with blockchain and tokens, they are not unfamiliar with them - they have been using "tokens" for a long time, and even these companies call them "Tokens" internally. Therefore, we believe that when entering this market, people will feel that they already understand this ecosystem, so we are very much looking forward to bringing Mandala to the market.
Kristen: In Indonesia, how does the government support blockchain projects? Why? How do they do it?
Michael: Indonesia is not as "free and unfettered" as El Salvador in embracing blockchain payments, but the government is generally very friendly to blockchain technology and attaches great importance to the value of this technology. One of the reasons is that the various data systems of the Indonesian government, especially the immigration department, have been hacked many times, so they pay great attention to data protection and data security. In this regard, the value of blockchain is very clear.
However, they are more conservative in allowing cryptocurrencies as a payment method because they want to protect their national currency. Therefore, currently, paying for goods and services with cryptocurrencies is still prohibited in Indonesia. But as early as a few years ago, they made it clear that crypto tokens do not fall into the category of securities, and directly listed nearly 500 tokens that were identified as non-securities (basically the top 500 tokens on Coin Market Cap). So they can be traded, but not used for payment. In general, Indonesia is very welcoming and open to blockchain technology. They hope to use it to promote economic innovation. Compared with some already very developed countries with mature systems, emerging market countries are more active in adopting new technologies.
Kristen: Great. Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, so how does Mandala plan to actually bring these people into the Web3 world? What are the biggest challenges and opportunities you face?
Michael: This question is actually the most exciting, but also the most challenging part of our entire project. One of the reasons why we started Mandala in the first place was that some government departments in Indonesia approached us to help them develop blockchain applications. But we didn’t want to just help them build a centralized “fake blockchain”, but wanted to build a system that still retains the spirit of decentralization.
Therefore, we refer to Polkadot's parallel chain and relay chain architecture: allowing some chains to be semi-centralized, but can access a decentralized and secure network. And this security layer is provided by Polkadot. So we are building Mandala according to Polkadot's design concept.
Secondly, we don’t want to go it alone to build an L1 public chain, which is too large and unrealistic. We hope to join a mature ecosystem, collaborate with other projects, and share this market. For example, we don’t need to reinvent the bridging technology ourselves, because Hyperbridge is already the top cross-chain bridge in Web3. We don’t plan to build our own fundraising platform, because the Polimec team has already built it. As for DEX, Acala, Hydration, and StellaSwap on Moonbeam are already very complete. So we hope to build a platform that can invite all Polkadot projects to come in and "eat" this emerging market together. This is why we must join the Polkadot ecosystem, because we can't and don't want to do everything alone.
Kristen: Mandala should be officially launched soon. We are really looking forward to your practice in Indonesia and looking forward to you leading Indonesian users into Web3 and the Polkadot ecosystem.
Michael: Yes, we are very excited. So please be prepared, our public beta network will be online in one to two weeks, and you can deploy your applications at that time. We welcome local and regional developers to deploy applications.
We have always compared blockchain to a large shopping mall: there will be anchor stores (such as supermarkets or department stores) that bring in traffic, and then small and medium-sized businesses will also come to open stores. Because we have the support of government projects, we will naturally have a large amount of "traffic", so everyone is welcome to cooperate, deploy applications, or establish connections through XCM. Mandala is now open for business, and everyone is welcome to come and build the ecosystem together.
The Treasury should distinguish between "grants" and "investments" and explore more sustainable approaches.
Kristen: Okay, great, I'm really looking forward to it. Let's move on to the next part and ask Max. You are an ecosystem fund in the Polkadot ecosystem. What unique strategies do you use to supplement the OpenGov Treasury and the Web3 Foundation's funding system? What unique role does HIC play in the entire ecosystem?
Max: Well, this is a very interesting question. I think we can look at this question from the difference between "funding" and "investment". For example, a project starts from scratch, such as Mandala Chain, or other project parties present here may also feel the same - the project will go through several stages in the development process. At the beginning, applying for funding is a good choice. The Web3 Foundation has been providing this kind of technical funding and has done a good job. Of course, there is also OpenGov. Many projects now apply for treasury funds. To put it bluntly, this is also a kind of funding because these funds basically "do not require returns."
I recently talked to a project, and they said: "We are building a project based on Polkadot, and now we want to extend our operating cycle - we need to pay employee salaries, rent, electricity, servers, etc. If someone can provide funds, we are also willing to transfer a part of the equity or tokens in return. But there seems to be no such mechanism at present." I thought at the time, it is true. Because now everyone directly applies for treasury funds, that is, applying for free funding.
But in the long run, this approach is not ideal. Treasury funding is appropriate for some early projects, but most projects have their own tokens, right? Then they can actually give these tokens to investors. But the problem is that there are very few VC (venture capital) funds active in the Polkadot ecosystem, but there are a lot of funds in the treasury. This situation is actually an unhealthy ecological structure. I have talked to many VCs, and many people are surprised that we focus on Polkadot, thinking: "Why not go to other ecosystems? Isn't it more popular somewhere else?" It is true that other ecosystems may be more popular now, but we are "fundamental investors" and we focus on long-term value rather than short-term popularity. But in reality, we do need some internal funds to "fill in the gap" because it is still difficult to get large external funds in now. They want to see more user growth, more liquidity, higher activity, and so on. Therefore, many projects now have to rely on Polkadot's own internal money to develop, which also leads to the role we play.
Strictly speaking, there are only two funds in the Polkadot ecosystem that focus on ecosystem investment. One is Scytale Digital, although they are currently focusing on the Mythical ecosystem; the other is our HIC, and we are 100% focused on Polkadot.
Of course, both of our funds are still relatively small at the moment. In comparison, Aptos has a $200 million ecosystem fund, and the contrast is obvious, but we are growing. I have also been thinking about a question recently: although the Polkadot treasury is large, the grants issued are actually "unrewarding". From a design point of view, this is the nature of grants. But I think maybe we can take a step forward, for example, when the treasury funds a project, it can also get the project's tokens in return, and put these tokens on the treasury's balance sheet. This is a more sustainable way. There is no such mechanism now, but we are exploring and promoting innovation in this area. Although there is nothing to announce for the time being, maybe we can share more with you in the future.
In addition, I think what Polkadot lacks most at the moment is "applications". Now we have entered a new stage with Polkadot Hub as the core, which will make it easier for projects to release applications. But the problem is that it is still difficult to get money for these applications. If we can have ten, one hundred, or one thousand applications online, there will always be one that will become a "killer application" and drive the entire ecosystem to leap forward, so we need more applications, and Polkadot Hub is where these applications are born.
But the key question is - how to raise funds? I think we can no longer rely entirely on funding, which is actually a model with "lack of accountability mechanism". You get money, but you don't have to deliver anything; this is understandable in the early stages of the project, but in the growth stage, relying on funding is actually very bad.
This is why we hope that the HIC fund can be bigger and can be more proactive in supporting these applications that truly build the ecosystem. We hope to support projects by investing rather than funding. You can look at what Polimec is doing now, which is actually filling this gap. They are helping projects to achieve financing, and we are also working hard to do our part. So, if you ask us what we need? That is: we need more support, more partners, and more resources to jointly expand this fund and support more projects that truly build the ecosystem.
We should change our thinking to be "token-centric" instead of the current "chain-centric" model.
Kristen: Polimec is now available on mobile phones. In which countries is it available? What are your plans for expansion?
Luca: We are now “globally available”. That is to say, except for sanctioned countries, users in all countries can use our platform through mobile applications or computer web pages.
There are actually two directions for future expansion:
The first is: how can we serve more projects? Max also mentioned just now that with the deployment of EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) on Asset Hub, the Polkadot ecosystem has actually expanded a lot. Polimec itself is already compatible with Ethereum (EVM compatible), and we can provide financing services for projects in the Ethereum ecosystem - that is, the project launches tokens on the Ethereum mainnet, and the funding part can be completed on Polimec. At this time, we need to allow Ethereum users to participate smoothly. So we made a very critical upgrade (which will be launched soon): We don’t want Ethereum users to have to create a Polkadot wallet to participate in the project. Many of their users only use MetaMask or Rabby wallets, and are typical Ethereum native users. Therefore, the new features we are about to launch allow them to participate in project financing directly with ETH without a Polkadot wallet, and the mainnet launch tokens they get will also be directly returned to their Ethereum wallets, which greatly reduces the threshold for participation and helps us expand more ETH native users.
The second is: we want to reach those investors who "don't want to use a wallet at all". At this time, we use the "White Label Solution". Our entire protocol is built on the chain, which means that we can provide it to others as a set of "software services". For example, traditional financial institutions such as asset management companies, securities companies, exchanges, etc. can directly use our protocol to conduct financing operations for their users. For example: you log in to your online bank today, the interface may not be very good, but you will still use it because you trust the bank. We will synchronize the data on the chain to their interface through the API, and users only need to invest in US dollars, Swiss francs, and euros as usual. The background automatically completes the conversion to stablecoins, on-chain transactions, KYC verification and other operations, and the blockchain part is "invisible" to them. This approach allows us to quickly expand the scope of services, so that traditional financial customers can also indirectly access Web3 financing opportunities, and native DeFi users can also directly participate.
Finally, there is one more point that I think is particularly important: Polkadot is an ecosystem that emphasizes "multi-chain interoperability". A big part of the reason we chose to join Polkadot is that it is not a "single-chain island". In the next three weeks, we will launch a new "token-centric" model to replace the current "chain-centric" model.
What does it mean? Now if users want to use USDT to participate in projects, they need to know which chain their USDT is on, such as Mandala, Hydration or Asset Hub. But we think this is unreasonable. Users only need to know "I have USDT" and should not need to understand the technical details of these underlying chains. We will automatically identify which chains users hold USDT on, and then help them open up the path to complete cross-chain transfers and operations in the cheapest and fastest way, and the whole process is fully automatic. This will greatly optimize the user experience, make the entire ecosystem easier to use and more efficient, and also more conducive to project access and expansion.
Kristen: Then through Hyperbridge, can the use of USDT in Polkadot ecosystem external chains be realized in the future?
Luca: Of course, this is 100% the goal. I don't want to steal Seun's topic, he has more ideas about this, and he can talk about it in detail later. But I can say that this is the goal we are working towards. We actually already have relevant technical support in the Polkadot ecosystem, which can realize the transition from a "chain-centric" to a "token-centric" architecture.
We will release this feature in the next few weeks, and after the release, the technology can be reused by the entire ecosystem. From the end user's perspective, this is just an abstract presentation on the front end. But if we look at the bigger picture, we can also connect this mechanism to other ecosystems, which unleashes the powerful potential of "cross-chain interoperability", and this is where protocols such as Hyperbridge can play their advantages. We don't just want to bridge tokens across chains, but more importantly, the tokens can actually be used on the target chain, which is "true cross-chain interoperability". In this way, users can benefit from the advantages of multiple ecosystems and multiple applications at the same time without having to exchange crypto assets for fiat currency to withdraw cash, which is the actual value brought to end users.
Users don’t care about decentralization at all? Hyperbridge believes that real competitiveness lies in decentralization
Kristen: Now let's get into the topic of Hyperbridge. You have received $5 million in funding in a short period of time. What factors do you think have made the community trust you so much? What is your main focus now after the financing?
Seun: Our plan at the time was to build Hyperbridge first, to have a real usable product online, and then to do funding, so that the community can evaluate what we have done - our code is open source, everyone can try the product themselves, and even imagine what other use cases this infrastructure can achieve. We were very "open and transparent" throughout the development process - we are a team that "builds wheels in the sun": we will publish research results, and I have been going to various conferences to introduce our progress. I think this "open construction" approach is the key to building community trust.
We are very active on Twitter, and I have participated in many voice chats in the Crypto circle. I also joked that we "rely on tweeting shitposts to get the project off the ground and complete funding." In fact, this is not entirely a joke. We are honest and open with the community, and there is nothing secretive about our operations. Of course, we are also very grateful for the community's trust.
As for the next step, our roadmap is also public and can be seen on the official website. The current focus is to support more chains, especially some non-EVM chains, such as Aptos, and even some newly emerging chains, such as the privacy-focused L1 - DarkFi, which is a project led by Bitcoin OG developer Amin.
Of course, we also hope to launch our own native applications. Currently, Hyperbridge is more like a developer tool, mainly used by development teams to build their own applications, but we also want to release our own protocol, Intent Protocol, so that users can experience the security and decentralization brought by Hyperbridge.
In general, our goal is to support more chains, more tokens, and more applications. We have also been communicating with other development teams to explore how to integrate Hyperbridge into their products, especially DeFi applications, such as DEX. You can imagine that in the future you can go to Uniswap and directly bridge your assets across chains on that page, and then use them there immediately. This is the real "Chain Abstraction". Users don't actually want to care about which chain an application is deployed on. They just want an experience that can "painlessly" bring assets from chain A to the application and use them directly. This is the core problem that Hyperbridge wants to solve.
Of course, we will continue to improve the developer experience, release more SDKs, so that developers can quickly build applications without having to rewrite too much basic code, and provide many reusable components. So in summary: improving user experience, developer experience, supporting more chains, more applications, and more tokens, this is our current direction.
Kristen: That sounds great. As a cross-chain bridge protocol, what are the outstanding advantages of Hyperbridge compared to other bridge protocols? What is your biggest competitive advantage?
Seun: We started building Hyperbridge in 2022. LayerZero had just launched at that time, and I was very disappointed with their security model, which was "2-of-2 multisig". Of course, this is not something they deliberately concealed, but the current state of the industry. I think we are now in a transitional stage of "Web2.5". Some people cannot create truly decentralized products, so they settle for the second best and do some "semi-decentralization", or even no decentralization at all, just putting a centralized system on the blockchain.
But there is a serious problem here: you are building a "trust system", and the trust system can only be expanded in the "trust circle", that is, people who use your system only use it because they may trust A16Z or the American investment institutions behind you, and feel that even if something goes wrong, they can rely on these institutions to support them. But the problem is that if you are not an American and do not have judicial rights protection in the United States, then you cannot get the same sense of security. Therefore, this type of system can only be expanded in a specific "trust circle", not globally.
There is a popular view on Twitter that "users don't care about decentralization at all". I think this statement is wrong. If you look at the top two protocols in Crypto - Bitcoin and Ethereum, they are the most decentralized protocols, and that is why they are given such high value. Other protocols that are "not decentralized enough" can only rank behind. So I think the real competitiveness lies in decentralization. Hyperbridge does not require you to trust me, nor does it require you to trust Polkadot, or our investors. You only need to trust the verification proof generated by the blockchain itself - these proofs are the same logic as when you confirm whether the transaction is completed on the exchange. I know that this difference may not be so obvious in the short term, but in the long run, decentralized systems will be more scalable to more use cases, more jurisdictions, and more countries and regions than "trust systems".
This year, the main focus is on PolkaVM and Polkadot Hub
Kristen: I also think decentralization is really important. Many users only realize its value when something goes wrong, so I think this is really a big advantage for you. Then let's talk about Papermoon. Our community has actually heard of Papermoon for a long time, especially in the Chinese WeChat group, but this should be your first public appearance in the English community, so everyone is also looking forward to getting to know you more deeply. So when did you start working with Polkadot? What services do you mainly provide? How is the current cooperation going?
Junius: Yes, this is the first time for Papermoon to participate in this roundtable event, so let me first briefly introduce the background of our team. The Papermoon team actually originated from the Moonbeam project. In the Polkadot ecosystem, Moonbeam is one of the earliest projects to implement the organizational decentralization strategy, and many of our initial members of Papermoon came from Moonbeam's documentation team, developer relations (DevRel) team, and marketing team. They later formed Papermoon to specifically support Moonbeam. Almost two years ago, I was still working in the Parity Asia team. At that time, Parity began to implement the "organizational decentralization" strategy, similar to Moonbeam's approach: some work was decentralized and undertaken by the community team, such as developer relations, document writing, marketing, etc., so that Parity could focus on technical development, such as products, Kusama, Polkadot, PolkaVM, etc. After decentralization, we have seen the birth of many new teams, such as PolkaPortEast and OpenGuild, and some old community organizations like PolkaWorld have also begun to participate in new forms.
At that time, Papermoon smoothly took over the documentation and DevRel work of Polkadot. Now most of the content on the Polkadot documentation website is basically written and maintained by our Papermoon team. We also maintain some code bases to provide developers with practical examples, such as how to use new features of Polkadot, such as the newly launched PolkaVM or some new development tools. We are currently studying how to enable the "auto-scaling" function in the parachain, which has been launched on Kusama. This is how Papermoon cooperates with Polkadot and provides services to the Polkadot ecosystem.
Kristen: Great. So does Papermoon have any special plans for promoting JAM and the Polkadot Hub? Because this will be a very important development and focus in the next few months of 2025.
Junius：Of course. We do have some plans to promote JAM, but because of our limited resources, we are mainly focusing on PolkaVM and Polkadot Hub, because this is the first feature to be released in the second quarter of this year. After this part is completed, if Parity can launch JAM testnet or SDK and other related content, I believe Papermoon will be the first team to try it out. For example, we will deploy or run these new features ourselves first, then document the whole process and set up a code repository on GitHub so that other developers can also try it step by step. So we will definitely work with Parity to promote the implementation of these new technologies. In addition, we are also preparing a course on JAM, which is planned to be launched at the end of this year, and the first version is in Chinese.
Kristen: Oh, it will be translated into English later, right?
Junius: Yes, we will also translate the courses into English and upload them to YouTube.
JAM can run for 816 years?
Kristen: Acala is also involved in the development of JAM and is one of the 38 participating teams. Can you tell us about your role in this project and the latest development progress?
Travis: Of course. Although I am not a developer, I can actually be said to be the one who is farthest away from development, haha, but I did receive some latest progress from our technical team. As for JAM, there are currently three phased goals (milestones). According to the news I received from the technical team this morning, we have completed 90% of the first phase, and the remaining 10% is the final version of the gray paper and some bug fixes, which are basically almost completed. Of course, the last 10% of the work may take longer (I'm not sure), but while waiting for the gray paper, our team has also started working on the second and third phases. Currently, the second phase is about halfway completed, and the third phase has just started. In other words, our progress is actually a bit ahead of schedule.
I also got an interesting little piece of knowledge: JAM’s life cycle is designed to last until mid-August 2840, which means it can run for about 816 years! So we shouldn’t worry too much about its lifespan. Also, JAM has some developer reward mechanisms, which are also quite interesting. In short, the progress is quite good.
“Profitability” should not be the core criterion for whether a proposal is worth funding
Kristen: Although we are running out of time, I think there is still an important topic that we must talk about, which is one of the biggest things that happened on Polkadot in April: the fourth phase of DV is being launched this month, but there have also been some controversies and discussions in the process.
What we are going to discuss today is the definition of "Common Good". Because Gavin mentioned that the original intention of OpenGov is to fund non-profit projects that serve the entire ecosystem, because some projects really can no longer obtain funds from other channels, and they have no way to achieve self-sustaining blood and can only rely on the support of the treasury. So, we really want to know, what conditions must a project meet to be considered "Common Good"? We also want to hear what you think: Which proposals are most worthy of priority support from the ecosystem? Which ones really have a positive impact on the ecosystem? Then let's ask Seun to talk about it first.
Seun: Okay. After reviewing our recently successfully passed OpenGov proposal, I also seriously reflected on it myself. I think if you want a proposal to pass, it must clearly have direct benefits for DOT holders and the Polkadot network. Just like our Hyperbridge proposal, its purpose is to improve the accessibility of DOT - through Hyperbridge, DOT can be expanded to other chains. This benefit is obvious, that is, more people can access DOT and bridge DOT back to the Polkadot ecosystem for use - whether it is on Acala, Hydration, Mandala or other platforms, whether you want to get staking rewards or do liquidity staking on Bifrost, you can benefit. This proposal is obviously beneficial to the entire network.
But if it is a proposal like "I want to develop something, but there is no clear output yet", then the treasury is actually "taking a risk" to invest in this project, and its risk is uncertain.
So I have a suggestion for teams that want to apply for treasury funding: if you want to apply for treasury funds, it is best to build the foundation of the project first, and then use treasury funds to launch the initial use case of the protocol.
Bifrost and Hydration have done a good job. They occasionally apply for liquidity loans from the treasury to maintain the operation of their vDOT products, and their proposals are basically passed smoothly. So I think we need to change our way of thinking from "what can I get from the treasury" to "what can I contribute to the ecosystem." This is the correct angle to measure public interest proposals.
In addition, if you are really still in the early stages of development, you can also try other ways to raise funds, such as funding from the Web3 Foundation or through Polimec funding. Once you have achieved results, you can apply for support from the treasury, and the success rate will be much higher.
Kristen: What if a project is not profitable in the long run? Do you think it is still worth funding?
Seun：I don't think profitability, especially monetary profitability, should be the core criterion for whether a proposal is worth funding. I think the key metric is: what practical benefits can this project bring to the Polkadot ecosystem, Polkadot developers, DAOs, or DOT holders today. For example, the PAPI proposal solves a pain point in the ecosystem. Polkadot.js is not maintained in a timely manner, the user experience is not good, and it may be designed for a completely different era. A project like PAPI, it is obvious that it will never become a profitable or revenue-generating project, but it still provides obvious value to the ecosystem. So I think whether it can make money is not the focus of our judgment. What's more important is whether you can clearly explain what value the project can bring now.
I noticed that the current treasury voters are actually very conservative. They have this right. After all, they are not venture capitalists and will not take risks for potential returns. They only need to focus on how to make the protocol better in the present.
Kristen: I see. So what kind of proposals do you think should be the priority funding targets for the Polkadot ecosystem?
Seun: I think that proposals that can expand the user base of Polkadot and expand application scenarios should be given priority, because this is very lacking in the current ecosystem. For example, hackathons and offline events to attract developers to join are usually easy to pass. I have seen many rejected proposals. The problem is that the applicants want to directly use the treasury funds to develop projects from scratch. I don’t think this is the best use of treasury funds.
Kristen: I see. Thank you for your insightful sharing. Let's hear what Michael has to say.
Michael：Yes, everyone may have different opinions on this topic, but for me it is very simple - whether a project can bring value, utility or users to the DOT token is the most important thing. Because at the end of the day, the existence of our entire network revolves around the DOT token. One of my favorite things about Polkadot is its decentralization: we don't own each other's projects, just like I'm here on the PolkaWorld podcast today, I don't own part of your PolkaWorld because of my participation, and you don't own part of my project because I'm here on the podcast, but we are all doing our own things, and we are all working towards the same goal - that is to make the DOT token more useful, more recognizable, and have more users.
DOT is like the blood flowing through the entire ecosystem, so any proposal that can bring more use cases and users to DOT is worth funding. I think Seun said it very well: if you just want to "incubate" your ideas with treasury funds, OpenGov may not be the best place, but if you have been practicing for a while and have proved that what you do really brings value to the ecosystem - whether it is through hackathons, offline events, developing a much-needed software, or expanding business cooperation - then I think this kind of project should definitely be funded.
I also think that we are sometimes too cautious because some not-so-good proposals may have been funded in the past. So we need to be more clear about the difference between "speculation" and "support". I think that the treasury is not used for "speculation", but should be used to "support" those truly excellent and influential teams. Regardless of whether these teams are profit-oriented or not, as long as they can bring actual value or users to DOT, they are worth supporting.
Kristen: Yes, but the word "value" is actually difficult to define. Some people say that their projects will bring value in the future, or that value will only be brought after the project is launched.
Michael: Yes, I think what we need to look at at this time is "practicality". If a project can bring practical uses or usage scenarios to DOT, or can bring in users, it can be considered a success. This is also the dividing line between "speculation" and "actual support". So I suggest that many teams can take the initial risks themselves, make a prototype, verify the idea, and then show the community what you have achieved. At this time, apply for treasury support. The risk is not borne by the treasury, but by you first. This model will make the treasury more willing to support you.
Kristen: Okay, thank you. Let's welcome Junius. I'd like to hear your opinion. What do you think about this issue?
Junius: I think it is actually quite difficult for everyone to agree on the standards, but personally, as a technician, I have two criteria for judging. The first is whether the project or proposal can really promote the large-scale popularization of Web3 technology, because this is a "Common Good" that is beneficial to the entire industry. For example, at Parity, we have built a lot of underlying platforms, such as Substrate, and some basic libraries. These are not only used for Parity or Polkadot projects, but also used by many other projects, such as Cardano and Avail, who both use Substrate to build their own chains, so I think this is a broader contribution to the entire industry.
The second criterion is back to Polkadot itself. I think we should really support more technical proposals or projects. Because I know that many developers choose to develop on Polkadot because they recognize our technical advantages. Although our platform itself has a high threshold for developers, we do need more practical tools to lower the development threshold and help everyone start projects on Polkadot more easily. This is my opinion on this topic.
Kristen: OK, I see. Your point is very solid, because you are a developer and have a lot of experience in this area, but some people say that we are almost ready on the technical level, and now we should strengthen the marketing aspect. After all, there are always different opinions. What do you think?
Junius: Yes, I agree with this point of view. In the short term, we can indeed attract more developers and project parties to join through some marketing or promotional activities. This is also a very important part. I agree with this statement.
Kristen: Yes, we should really "walk on two legs" and not just rely on one side. Okay, finally it's Travis' turn.
Travis: Well, I think the three people before me have already talked about it very comprehensively, but if I may add a little bit, I think one of the core elements of "Common Good" is inclusiveness and its core functions: for example, how does it help the entire ecosystem? Does it help to enhance the capacity of the treasury? Can it attract new users? I think the most difficult thing is how to measure this "influence". Although I am not one of the earliest members of Acala, I know that our development team has done a lot of "Common Good". Take the Chopsticks tool for example. Many developers are using it. It was originally a small tool that we could use internally, but we chose to open it up so that people in the entire ecosystem can benefit. I think this type of tool is a typical "Common Good".
Of course, some people now suggest "making the product first and then applying for subsidies afterwards". I think this may also be a solution, but there are also some problems. For example, some people will say: "You have already made it, should we still pay you the money?" This becomes a bit politicized, but in the final analysis, I think the focus is still on practicality and whether it has a clear and measurable impact. If a public interest project is really well done, then its value should be visible and quantifiable.
Kristen: Yes, what you said makes a lot of sense, and I agree with it. In fact, we often say that it is easy to set standards, but it is difficult to review a proposal and make a decision. Because there is a complete team behind a proposal, our decision will affect many people. This is indeed a difficult process, but I have learned a lot from your opinions. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you very much for the wonderful sharing of the guests in the April Monthly Report today, and thank you for the participation of the audience. If you want to know more about Polkadot, please follow all our guests today, and please continue to pay attention to the updates of PolkaWorld. See you next time, thank you everyone!