🐂 boolish - top news

• Kusama nomination pool participants can now vote with staked KSM in OpenGov after completing a one-time activation process.

• Talisman 2.5 now supports the Polkadot Unified Address Format. As parachain integrations complete, users will be able to use a single Substrate address across all parachains, with Bifrost among the first to roll out.

  • The UX Bounty posted a guide to how to use DOT as a fee on parachains.

• The Polkadot Blockchain Academy launched its first policymaker-focused program for politicians in Switzerland. A delegation of UK Parliament members will attend the inaugural course.

• Web3 Foundation awarded SatoshiPay a grant to enhance its Vortex fiat ramp on Pendulum. Development focuses include Polkadot offramp creation, expanded stablecoin availability via XCM, LATAM market deployment, and Stellar-Polkadot Spacewalk bridge upgrades.

• Ref 1424 has mobilized 300M DOT in voting power as the community attempts to recover 200K DOT from the compromised Parallel parachain.

• Jakub Panik (Hydration cofounder) posted his reaction to the audience’s reception of Polkadot at Consensus Hong Kong.

⭕️ ecosystem

• Zeitgeist co-founder David Perry assumes CEO role as Logan Saether steps down, signaling increased focus on futarchy-based governance.

  • A new prediction market launched for HDX reaching $0.015 by April 1st.

• Robonomics released its 2025 roadmap emphasizing physical infrastructure and hardware development.

• Polimec integrates Sumsub verification platform for streamlined user onboarding.

• Hydration reduced minimum swapping fees for Omnipool (now 0.2% from 0.25%) and Stableswap (now 0.02% from 0.04%).

  • Three new referenda propose changes to DOT incentives for CFG, INTR, KILT, and vASTR, plus new farms for tBTC and AAVE.

  • LAOS token makes its DEX debut on Hydration.

• Polkadex partners with Australian tech studio Mindevolved for new orderbook development.

• Stellaswap extends V4 farms' 25% rewards boost by one week.

• Nova Wallet adds Ledger support for BNC on both Polkadot and Kusama.

• Teneo, Peaq's data scraping DePIN, secured $3M in seed funding led by RockawayX, Borderless Capital, and Generative Ventures.

• KodaDot partnered with ETH Bratislava for an NFT exhibition of Polkadot art on May 23-24.

• Acala reached 8M blocks produced since its launch as Polkadot's first parachain.

• Crust Network partnered with AIxBlock to provide decentralized storage for AI training and deployment.

• Boomerang, a new memepad and AMM DEX, announces upcoming launch on Acala.

• Phala and Subsocial have been added to the Polkadot ecosystem dashboard on Token Terminal.

• Jonas Gehrlein, researcher at W3F, has released a paper showing that parachain slot auctions (using the candle auction mechanism) for Polkadot parachains achieved high levels of efficiency.

💰 opportunities

• The Social Media Editorial Board, a team of community members responsible for managing the Polkadot Twitter account, opened applications for its 3rd cohort.

• Entropretty opened an algorithmic tattoo design contest for DIM 1 Proof-of-Ink. $3000 DOT prize pool available for submissions by February 22nd.

• peaq launched Season 1 of Get Real campaign with $100M incentive pool. Users can claim upgradable Peaqonaut NFTs and earn rewards through Peaqosystem DePIN interactions.

• PBA announced December in-person JAM technical course. JAM builders will train selected technologists and academics from Polkadot, Ethereum, and Web2 ecosystems.

• Kaito x Polkadot launched the Polkadot Yapper Leaderboard with $100K monthly rewards. Top 50 Yappers will receive distributions starting March 31st.

• Flappy Wud announced a special Polkadot Discord airdrop campaign. Top 20 players by February 26th will receive up to 10M WUD tokens.

• PBA-X began enrollment for its second online cohort.

🏛️ governance

For more information on Polkadot governance statistics, check out the Polkadot Dune governance dashboard.

🕓 confirming

• Ref 1407: Setting 4 curators for the Legal Bounty (86.1% in favor)

🙌🏾 unanimous support

• Ref 1424: Force upgrade of Parallel parachain to address hack

• Ref 1436: Increasing schedulerParams.lookahead to 3

• Ref 1439: Funding Hyperbridge/Bifrost 795k DOT liquidity campaign

• Ref 1440: Funding LimeChain for Giant Squid phase 2

• Ref 1447: Funding Subsquid indexing infrastructure

• Ref 491: Deregistering parathread 3390 🦅

👍🏾 passing

• Ref 1413: Retroactive JAM graypaper reader funding (99.1% in favor)

• Ref 1417: Closing technical support bounty (99.5% in favor)

• Ref 1416: Marketing Bounty contract execution via PCF (99.9% in favor)

👎🏾 failing

• Ref 1410: RegionX Coretime marketplace (39.4% against)

• Ref 1411: Spanish Bounty V3 (80.2% against)

• Ref 1412: Brave Wallet integration (99.9% against)

• Ref 1425: Peer3 SDK development (70.6% against)

• Ref 1426: Decentered retroactive funding (100% against)

• Ref 1433: WAGOI development (80.5% against)

• Ref 492: Kusama brand evolution (45.2% against) 🦅

✅ approved

• Ref 1390: Talisman mobile wallet funding

• Ref 1399: WebZero retroactive Consensus funding

• Ref 1427: Runtime upgrade to 1.4.0 (enables pool voting and ETH asset transfer)

• Ref 494: Kusama runtime upgrade to 1.4.0 🦅

❌ rejected

• Ref 1388: G2 Esports sponsorship and onboarding strategy

📺 what to watch and listen to

• Regulatory Rewind #003 by The Kusamarian x Polkadot.

• OpenDev Core Polkadot Call - Feb 2025.

📖 what to read

• Polkadot is Inevitable: My Bull Thesis in 9 Points by gbaci.

• PVM vs. SVM – Why JAM Leaves Solana in the Dust and EVM vs PVM – Why JAM Is A Game Changer by Daniel Cukier (building one of the JAM implementations).

• How Polkadot Removed Gas Fees and Why Paying Gas Fees is an Outdated Economic Model by JAMman.

• How Polkadot Rollups (parachains) Compare to Ethereum Rollups by Bill Laboon (dir. Of Edu & Gov at W3F).

• FAQ for native smart contracts on Polkadot. Great resource for ecosystem agents.

• Top picks from the Kaito x Polkadot collab (only covers content by Polkadot outsiders):

  • I Just Realized How Much I Overlooked Polkadot and Why It’s a Mistake to Fade $DOT in 2025 by Zaimiri.

  • The Best DeFi Platform by MookieNFT.

  • Your Magic Polkadot Wallets Guide by Fabsverse.

📅 events

• Polkadot will be showing up big for ETHDenver. If you are attending, read this so you don’t miss out.

• Web3 Summit 2025 opens speaker applications for its July 16-18 event at Funkhaus Berlin.

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