Major Opportunities for Polkadot Ecosystem Developers: Participate in the Construction of Next-Generation Protocols

If you are a blockchain developer in the Polkadot ecosystem looking for a high-value, milestone project and incentive mechanism, then there is an important opportunity that you should not miss.

A major initiative launched by a certain foundation is underway, featuring a reward pool of up to 10 million DOT and 100,000 KSM, open to all technology pioneers willing to engage in building the next generation of the Polkadot protocol.

As the next-generation core protocol of Polkadot, this new technology represents a future network architecture with higher performance and greater flexibility. This reward program is one of the key projects promoted by the foundation, aimed at accelerating the development and implementation of the new protocol.

Through this reward program, the foundation looks forward to more developers engaging in the construction of the next-generation protocol of Polkadot, together building a more open, secure, and autonomous Web3 infrastructure!

Basic Information of the New Protocol

The new protocol is a new technology designed to replace the Polkadot relay chain, featuring stronger smart contract execution capabilities and a more streamlined modular architecture. Its goal is to allow Polkadot to no longer be limited to running specific functions, but to support general "services" - that is, smart contract logic that can run on the core.

In the new protocol, developers can still build and deploy chains through Substrate, which will connect as a type of parachains service.

The new protocol technically introduces a series of innovations, including a new virtual machine built on the RISC-V instruction set architecture to replace WebAssembly, as well as a block generation algorithm based on zero-knowledge proofs. These designs collectively create a more scalable and flexible new paradigm for Polkadot.

Competition Objectives

The foundation aims to fund the implementation of multi-language new protocol clients, strengthening the decentralization, diversity, and risk resistance of the protocol, and avoiding the risks brought by single points of failure.

This bonus program will be promoted in conjunction with many existing Polkadot ecosystem funding projects (such as Grants, on-chain financial support, etc.).

Review Process

Submissions will be reviewed by members of the Polkadot Technical Association, and the foundation will coordinate relevant support and incentives based on the review results.

Three Competition Paths

Competing teams can choose from three different development paths, and the tasks for the first phase milestones of all three paths are the same. In all paths, the use of non-exclusive underlying third-party libraries is allowed, including but not limited to:

• Cryptographic primitives (such as erasure codes, Bandersnatch, Ed25519)
• Binary Encoding Library
• Database system
• Network protocol stack (such as QUIC)

After completing each stage, developers can obtain a technical level promotion from the Polkadot Technical Association based on their code and protocol contributions, without being subject to regular time requirements. The highest promotion can reach III Dan (Fellow Level 3).

Path One: Full Validation Node (including self-developed virtual machine)

Development Goals: Achieve a complete verification node with block production capability and implement a high-performance self-developed virtual machine.

Maximum Reward: 500,000 DOT + 5,000 KSM

Performance Requirements: The virtual machine execution, Trie/database, signature verification, and availability (EC/DB) testing will run on standard hardware.

Milestone:

1. M1 IMPORTER: Can import blocks through state transition consistency testing. Reward: 100,000 DOT + 1,000 KSM

2. M2 AUTHORER: Fully compatible, capable of generating blocks (including network communication, off-chain processing) Rewards: 100,000 DOT + 1,000 KSM

3. M3 HALF-SPEED: Meets standards, performance reaches 50% (including virtual machine implementation) Rewards: 100,000 DOT + 1,000 KSM

4. M4 FULL-SPEED: Complies with standards, performance meets 100% (including virtual machine implementation) Reward: 100,000 DOT + 1,000 KSM

5. M5 SECURE: Professional audit by a third-party. Reward: 100,000 DOT + 1,000 KSM

Path 2: Non-self-developed virtual machine verification node

Development Goal: Build a complete validation node, but the virtual machine may use third-party implementations to meet performance requirements.

Maximum Reward: 350,000 DOT + 3,500 KSM

Milestone:

1. MN1 IMPORTER: Can import blocks through state transition consistency testing. Rewards: 100,000 DOT + 1,000 KSM

2. MN2 AUTHORER: Fully compatible, can generate blocks Rewards: 100,000 DOT + 1,000 KSM

3. MN3 HALF-SPEED: Complies with standards, performance reaches 50% (excluding virtual machine implementation) Rewards: 50,000 DOT + 500 KSM

4. MN4 FULL-SPEED: Meets standards, performance is 100% compliant (excluding virtual machine implementation) Reward: 50,000 DOT + 500 KSM

5. MN5 SECURE: Audited Rewards: 50,000 DOT + 500 KSM

Additional Rewards: If the team successfully completes the high-performance virtual machine and passes the performance testing and auditing, they can receive an additional 100,000 DOT + 1,000 KSM at the MN6 stage.

Path Three: Light Node Implementation

Development Goal: Achieve a node with low resource consumption, which, although lacking block production capability, can handle network requests, making it suitable for embedding in tools or web pages.

Maximum Reward: 250,000 DOT + 2,500 KSM

Resource Requirements: Nodes must complete standard tasks on standard hardware with very low CPU, memory, storage, and network usage. Performance should be roughly consistent with smoldot.

Milestone:

1. ML1 IMPORTER: Can import blocks through consistency testing. Reward: 100,000 DOT + 1,000 KSM

2. ML2 FULL-SPEED: Performance meets 100% standards Reward: 50,000 DOT + 500 KSM

3. ML3 SECURE: Audited Rewards: 100,000 DOT + 1,000 KSM

Additional Rules:

• Each development language group can issue up to 4 ML2 rewards.
• Each language group has only 2 ML3 audit reward slots, and they must come from different language implementations.
• After reaching ML2, the team can reserve the ML3 audit qualification for 6 months. If ML3 is not submitted during this period, the slot can be taken over by the next eligible team, processed in the order of application.

Suggestions for the Development Team

The more completed milestones you have, the more competitive your submission will be. If you are not sure where to start, it is recommended to develop in the following order:

• The data structure and serialization of blocks/headers
• The data structure and serialization of the status
• In-memory databases and Merklization (Merkle tree processing)
• Non-virtual machine block execution/state transition
• Virtual machine instantiation, execution, and host functions
• Block Import Test

Notes

To ensure the fairness of the competition and the security of the protocol, it is recommended that each competing team avoid referencing the specific implementation details of other teams, especially not sharing code directly.

You can communicate high-level design ideas or optimization directions with other teams, but you must not consult or borrow from each other's specific implementations. The reviewers will focus on whether there are any unreported collaborative behaviors, such as highly similar code structures appearing in both implementations, or the occurrence of the same bugs simultaneously, which will be considered potential risk signals.

This does not mean banning all forms of collaboration. If you collaborate with other teams during the debugging process, simply record the relevant content and discoveries truthfully, and submit it to the relevant repository via GitHub issue, or explain it in the remarks when submitting the results, and you can participate in compliance. Transparent records help ensure the attribution of your team's achievements and technical contributions.

More Polkadot Ecosystem Grant Programs

In addition to this reward program, the Polkadot ecosystem also offers various long-term and special funding channels to support developers, researchers, and entrepreneurial teams in advancing innovative projects at different stages.

Polkadot Open Source Grant Bounty Program

The program provides up to $30,000 in funding for individuals or small teams aspiring to build open-source software for the Polkadot ecosystem, with an expected support for about 15 teams or individuals. Applicants must have solid open-source development experience, and the funding covers prototype development, general tool libraries, or complete DApps, etc. The funds will be disbursed according to project milestones and will be allocated after review.

A certain foundation funding program

The long-term funding program that has been running since 2019 selects and supports development and research efforts dedicated to enhancing the Polkadot ecosystem on a quarterly basis. The program provides phased funding and offers project parties ecological collaboration, promotional resources, and other supporting resources.

Polkadot Ecosystem Fund

Led by a renowned digital asset management company, this fund focuses on supporting early projects built on Polkadot and its Rollups. The fund has financed several core projects including Astar and Centrifuge.

Polkadot Ecosystem Fund II

Initiated by a certain capital, this fund focuses on venture capital and liquidity investment strategies for growth-stage companies. The fund provides Pre-seed/Seed stage support in the form of equity or Tokens and collaborates with other VCs for strategic investments. Invested projects include peaq, Mythical, and Mandala, among others.

Polkadot Pioneer Award

A bounty funding program sponsored by the on-chain treasury and governed by DOT holders, with a total prize pool of nearly 1 million DOT, aimed at rewarding innovators who solve core challenges of Polkadot. It has currently supported multiple technological breakthroughs, including the zero-knowledge cryptography project ZPrize.

Conclusion

The new protocol is not only the next-generation core technology of Polkadot but also a key step in determining the future direction of the entire ecosystem. This reward program is gathering the most visionary developers from around the world to build a stronger and more open Web3 infrastructure.

Let's build a stronger and more open decentralized future together!