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    inTreasurer|7 days ago

    #1888 Close 7,138 Spam Bounties on Asset Hub Polkadot

    This proposal closes 7,138 spam bounties on Asset Hub Polkadot created
    by exploiting a low BountyDepositBase (~0.002 DOT). The Treasurer origin
    calls bounties.closeBounty() on each, slashing proposer deposits to Treasury
    and freeing on-chain storage.

    Full details, methodology, and call structure: https://hackmd.io/@dhirajs/HJCkrtDRWe

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    inMedium Spender|25 days ago

    #1885 Paseo Testnet Operations H1 2026 - USDC Funding via Multi-Asset Bounty

    This proposal requests $392,500 USDC to fund the operational costs of the Paseo testnet for H1 2026. This is the first Paseo funding proposal denominated in stablecoins, made possible by the newly deployed multi-asset bounty pallet. The remaining DOT balance in the existing bounty (~38,946 DOT) will be returned to the Polkadot treasury upon transition.

    For full proposal details, including scope of work, quarterly budget breakdown, SLOs, and curator information, see the full proposal.

    Note: This is a resubmission of referendum 1878. The original contained a technical error in the metadata field of the call data.

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    355K USDC
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    inMedium Spender|25 days ago

    #1882 Snowbridge 2026/2027 Bug Bounty Proposal

    Snowbridge Bug Bounty Programme Proposal Aug 2026-July 2027

    This proposal requests funding to renew the Snowbridge bug bounty programme, which expired on 16 April 2026. Snowbridge secures ~$35M in TVL and processes $10M–$20M in monthly volume - a vulnerability could result in catastrophic loss of user funds and severe reputational damage to the Polkadot ecosystem.

    The previous programme, run on HackenProof for one year, was funded by the Snowbridge team out of their own milestones. It received over 500 submissions, of which approximately 5 were valid findings that led to fixes ($22,300 paid out with Hackenproof, $15,000 paid to a security report logged before the Hackenproof programme). The programme must be renewed to ensure proper security coverage.

    The total request is $355,000, covering 12 months of bug bounty operations.

    Programme Scope

    In Scope

    The bug bounty covers all Snowbridge on-chain code (Ethereum contracts and Snowbridge Polkadot on-chain code) Scope can be viewed at our Hackenproof programme: https://hackenproof.com/programs/snowbridge-on-chain-code 

    Out of Scope

    • Off-chain relayers
    • Frontend / dApp
    • SDK and tooling

    Severity Levels and Rewards

    SeverityDescriptionReward
    CriticalDirect loss of user funds, consensus bypass, unauthorized minting/burning$30,000 – $75,000
    HighTemporary freezing of funds, griefing attacks with material cost to users$6,000 – $20,000
    MediumNon-critical logic errors, state inconsistencies that don't risk funds$2,000 – $5,000
    LowInformational findings, gas optimizations, minor code quality issues$200 – $1,000

    Programme Operations

    Platform

    The programme will continue on HackenProof, which hosted the previous year's programme.

    Reporting

    Bi-yearly reports to the community on:

    • Number of submissions received
    • Number of valid findings and their severity
    • Rewards paid out
    • Remaining fund balance

    Cost Breakdown

    Bug Bounty Fund

    #ItemCost
    1Bug bounty reward pool (12 months)$250,000
    2HackenProof platform fee (12 months)$5,000
    Total$255,000

    The reward pool covers payouts for valid findings. In 10 months, we will liaise with the Treasury to determine plans for the next year of Snowbridge and unspent funds will either carry-over into the next year's pool or be returned to the treasury. The pool must be large enough to credibly incentivize security researchers to investigate critical-severity vulnerabilities. Should the reward pool be depleted before the 12 month period, the programme will be paused until a top-up proposal passes Treasury governance.

    Triage and Response Engineering

    Running a bug bounty is not passive. The previous year's programme received over 500 submissions, the vast majority being false positives (estimated 99%). Each submission requires investigation and triage, ideally within 24 hours. Valid findings require additional time for root cause analysis, fix development, testing, and deployment.

    This workload is increasing due to LLM-generated submissions, which are higher volume but lower quality - still requiring human review to identify the rare valid finding. We are working on setting up triage automations, which will help manage the increasing volume but will not eliminate the need for human review.

    #ItemCost
    1Triage, investigation & resolution$100,000
    Total$100,000

    Total

    #ItemCost
    1Bug bounty fund (reward pool + platform)$255,000
    2Triage and response engineering$100,000
    Total$355,000
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    364.2K USDC
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    inMedium Spender|25 days ago

    #1881 Snowbridge 2026/2027 Maintenance Proposal

    Summary

    Snowbridge is Polkadot’s trustless bridge to Ethereum and its L2 ecosystem, providing critical infrastructure for liquidity and users moving between the two ecosystems. Over the past year the bridge processed ~21,000 transfers, maintained $10M–$20M in monthly volume, and generated 14,100 DOT in revenue for the Polkadot Treasury (view dashboard).

    During the previous funding period the team delivered Snowbridge V2, reducing bridging fees by up to 90%, enabling arbitrary contract execution, and launching support for Base, Optimism and Arbitrum.

    This proposal funds the basic maintenance and operation of the bridge for the next 12 months. The total request is $364,200 for 12 months, significantly smaller than the previous proposal.

    Overview

    Snowbridge is Polkadot’s common good trustless bridge to Ethereum and its L2 ecosystem.

    Over the past two years it has become core infrastructure for cross-ecosystem liquidity, enabling users to move assets between Ethereum (and recently Base, Optimism and Arbitrum) and the Polkadot ecosystem without trusted intermediaries.

    Statistics about the last year:

    • TVL: TVL peaked at $180M in October 2025 and currently stands at ~$60M, reflecting the broader crypto market downturn rather than a decline in bridge usage.
    • Monthly Volume: Despite the extreme bear-market, Snowbridge usage has grown, with monthly transaction volume consistent between $10M-$20M. In October last year, volume jumped to $70M.
    • Snowbridge dApp: The Snowbridge dApp has had ~29k visitors in the last year, with 4.2k users using Snowbridge to transfer tokens (20% of all transfers).
    • Revenue Generation for Treasury: Snowbridge is one of the few treasury-funded projects that directly returns revenue to the Polkadot Treasury through bridge fees. Snowbridge has generated approximately 14,100 DOT in revenue from fees, and this was automatically deposited into the treasury.
    • Hydration: Snowbridge is the main bridge supporting transfers to and from Hydration, Polkadot’s most successful DeFi project. In the last year, Snowbridge has enabled ~13k transfers between Hydration and Ethereum.
    • Transfers: There have been 21k transfers through Snowbridge in the last year.
    • Third-party relayers: Third-party relayers have started appearing organically, a sign that Snowbridge is maturing into decentralized infrastructure that others are building on independently.

    Snowbridge had two main goals for 2025, besides running a secure bridge:

    • reduce bridging cost
    • reduce transfer latency

    Our team has delivered on this promise, slashing bridging fees for our users by at least 80%, and reducing latency where possible.

    Our review of the last year can be viewed at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UY1-Ju5WvAlYM4gv8NbSJh7Rurdpu8zZOrs5Fv8d7Io/edit?usp=sharing

    Why Snowbridge Matters for Polkadot

    • Liquidity access: Snowbridge connects Polkadot to the largest liquidity ecosystem in crypto: Ethereum and its L2s.
    • Trustless architecture: Unlike multisig bridges, Snowbridge verifies Ethereum consensus directly on Polkadot.
    • Core ecosystem infrastructure: Projects like Hydration and NeuroWeb rely on Snowbridge for Ethereum liquidity.

    Team

    This proposal covers the scope of 2 full-time equivalent engineers (FTE). The core team commits to ensuring that two team members are allocated to the project at all times, regardless of the individual availability of specific team members.

    Operations and Maintenance

    Since software continuously evolves, ensuring Snowbridge continues to run securely and smoothly is by no means a passive task. Our team works on maintaining Snowbridge every day by investigating security reports logged through our bug bounty, ensuring our off-chain components are compliant with on-chain changes, such as updating our relayers and indexers when runtime upgrades occur. Our team is always on call for potential issues with transfers or user support.

    Success metric: Snowbridge continues to run as a high availability and secure service.

    Ethereum Hardforks

    As part of Snowbridge’s trustless architecture, the Ethereum light client on BridgeHub needs to be compliant with the Ethereum consensus spec. About twice a year, Ethereum undergoes hardforks that changes the format of consensus updates. Our team needs to be proactive and update:

    • Update the on-chain Ethereum light client, generate real test data and write tests
    • Update relayers and verify proof generation and verification
    • Update local end-to-end scripts to use the new consensus client (Lodestar node)
    • Update Westend relayers and our self-hosted Lodestar Sepolia node, coordinating the Westend upgrade in time to test the switchover on Sepolia before mainnet
    • Coordinate with Ethereum core dev PMs on mainnet fork timing to ensure sufficient lead time for a governance proposal
    • Prepare and test the runtime upgrade release (including Chopsticks testing) in time for the hardfork
    • Upgrade our Lodestar node to the required version before the fork

    Ethereum’s latest upcoming hardfork, Gloas, is expected to enact within the next 6 months. Heze is expected before end of this proposal, between H2 2026 and H1 2027.

    Bridge Support

    The reason will monitor bridge availability during office hours, ensure relayers are running and providing consensus updates in a regular cadence.

    Runtime Upgrades

    Since Snowbridge is deployed on BridgeHub and AssetHub, runtime upgrades affect our off-chain infrastructure, and requires our team to update chain metadata in our indexer, gas estimator and sometimes UI and relayers.

    Bug Bounty

    The bug bounty fund is addressed in a separate proposal.

    Past Year in Review

    For a detailed review of the past year’s work, see Year In Review 2025/2026.

    Cost Breakdown

    The total ask is $364,200 covering the period from May 2026 to April 2027.

    Engineering: $250,000

    #ItemCost
    12 full-time developers ($9,417/month each × 12 months, $60/hr)$226,000
    2Technical lead reviewer ($2,000/month × 12 months)$24,000
    Total$250,000

    The two developers handle all ongoing Snowbridge development and maintenance work. The technical lead reviewer is our main Solidity expert, providing architecture oversight, code review and internal security audits over any Solidity changes.

    Scope of Work

    AreaDescription
    Ethereum hardfork support (Gloas, Heze)On-chain light client updates, relayer updates, proof generation changes, testnet coordination, Chopsticks testing, runtime upgrade release, governance proposals
    Runtime upgrade compatibilityUpdate off-chain infrastructure (indexer, gas estimator, relayers) when BridgeHub/AssetHub runtime upgrades land
    Relayer operationsMonitor and maintain consensus relayers, debug relay delays, handle stuck transfers
    SDK and e2e test maintenanceKeep the Snowbridge SDK and end-to-end test suite up to date — required for verifying bridge correctness on every change
    XCM handling improvementsAd-hoc improvements related smarter XCM construction, for better error handling, etc.
    Security audit follow-upsAddress any security findings that our team receives (we sometimes receive ad-hoc findings via email)
    Polkadot SDK contributionsOngoing upstream contributions to the Polkadot SDK for Snowbridge-related code

    Estimated Hours Breakdown

    TaskHours
    Ethereum Hardforks700
    Gloas hardfork (light client updates, relayer changes, proof generation, testnet coordination, Chopsticks testing, runtime release, governance proposal)350
    Heze hardfork (same scope as Gloas)350
    Runtime Upgrades (~6/year)450
    On-chain changes that impact Snowbridge, updating of tests200
    Update off-chain infrastructure per upgrade (indexer metadata, gas estimator, relayers)250
    Relayer Operations350
    Consensus relayer monitoring and fixing compatibility issues with onchain code200
    Relayer optimizations to reduce infra costs150
    Solidity & Gateway Updates350
    Gateway contract updates for BEEFY changes100
    Solidity code review and internal security audit (technical lead)250
    SDK & End-to-End Testing450
    SDK updates to stay compatible with runtime and contract changes200
    End-to-end test suite maintenance and new test coverage250
    Infrastructure & DevOps600
    Lodestar node upgrades and maintenance150
    Westend/Paseo testnet infrastructure250
    Self-hosted indexer maintenance200
    Incident Response400
    Bridge incident investigation and resolution250
    Security finding triage (ad-hoc reports)150
    Unforeseeable feature and Improvement requests450
    Total3,750

    Core Infrastructure: $64,200

    Our team has done significant operational cost cutting over the past year, eliminating or self-hosting services that were previously paid for. We remove third party dependencies where we could and moved to self-hosting, to save on costs. We’re also only asking the treasury to cover infrastructure related to core bridge operations and consensus - not off-chain products, message relayers, frontend nor ancillary services.

    Total core infrastructure costs are $64,200 annually.

    Infrastructure

    #ItemAnnual
    1Beefy light client on-chain costs (Ethereum gas)$35,000
    2AWS (Lodestar node for consensus updates, Paseo and Westend infra, Sepolia node, Indexer for monitoring)$26,500
    3Github$2,000
    4Testing gas fees$700
    Subtotal$64,200

    Summary

    #ItemCost
    1Engineering$250,000
    2Company margin (20%)$50,000
    3Core bridge infrastructure$64,200
    Total ask$364,200

    Payment Structure

    Our budget has been kept minimal, focused on core bridge infrastructure, consensus costs and engineering costs that are far below market rates. In order to remain competitive, it’s important for our staff and business to have security for our runway, and so we’re asking for a single up front payment covering the year’s runway of $364,200.

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    inSmall Spender|27 days ago

    #1880 DeServe.network Global Paseo Archive RPC Deployment - Proposal #1

    ℹ️ Please view the counterpart proposals:

    • Polkadot proposal live at referendum #1879
    • Kusama proposal live at referendum #646

    Summary

    This proposal is for the global deployment of a progressively decentralized archive RPC network for the Paseo testnet and its system parachains. Please view the detailed forum post for the complete background of the initial deployment for Polkadot Asset Hub and Coretime.

    DeServe is:

    • Global RPC infrastructure - 14 locations, widest coverage
    • Geo-steered load balancing
    • Lowest latency among all major Polkadot RPC providers
    • By a Polkadot-native infrastructure & software builder, ex-IBP Rank-6 member
    • Path to on-chain, general-purpose infrastructure (DePIN)
    • Launched on March 31st, 2026 as a single-chain deployment, >53M req/24h by day 10
    • Testnet live on Paseo, para id 5150 (telemetry), proof of on-chain commitment, currently running a shell runtime with business logic upgrade planned
    • 80% cheaper than IBP
    • Webpage live at deserve.network
    • Developer documentation: docs.deserve.network

    This proposal requests $11,719.00 as the first payment, half of the first three months, to bootstrap the global rollout of all Paseo services. Subsequent payments will be requested via 3-monthly retroactive proposals, alongside full transparency reports covering expenses, performance, and request analytics.

    Initial Traction & Updates

    The following X posts document DeServe's first days of deployment:

    • Launch announcement for Polkadot Asset Hub (post)
    • >1.7M requests on day 1, Ethereum-compatible RPC deployment (post)
    • >45M requests/24h, deserve.network launch (post)
    • >50M requests/24h, docs.deserve.network launch (post)
    • >53M requests/24h, Polkadot Coretime rollout and public dashboard launch (post)

    Over the first two weeks of deployment, DeServe has served over 500 million requests, and is currently serving >36M requests/day.

    Live request analytics are available at the public dashboard.

    Screenshot 2026-04-15 at 08.27.05

    Deployment & Coverage

    Screenshot 2026-04-15 at 07.52.39

    Complete Paseo rollout under this proposal

    • Paseo Relay Chain
    • Asset Hub
    • Bridge Hub
    • Collectives
    • Coretime
    • People
    ChainArchive RPCETH RPCStatus
    Paseo Relay Chain✅-To be deployed
    Asset Hub✅✅To be deployed
    Coretime✅-To be deployed
    Bridge Hub✅-To be deployed
    Collectives✅-To be deployed
    People✅-To be deployed

    Infrastructure

    • 14 locations across 6 continents, 7 providers including Helikon
      • Atlanta, GA, US
      • Gravelines, FR
      • İstanbul, TR
      • Johannesburg, ZA
      • Limburg, DE
      • London, UK
      • Miami, FL, US
      • Montreal, CA
      • Mumbai, IN
      • Seattle, WA, US
      • Sao Paulo, BR
      • Singapore, SG
      • Sydney, AU
      • Warsaw, PL
    • 1G–10G uplink bandwidth
    • Unmetered traffic on most nodes
    • 950GB–14.72TB NVMe storage per node
    • ECC RAM

    Monitoring and High Availability

    • Geo-steered load balancing: requests routed to the nearest node
    • 15-second health checks: unreachable nodes removed from the pool
    • Quick recovery from low-cost backup storage preferred over 2N redundancy for cost-efficiency
    • Prometheus & Grafana monitoring and alerting across all nodes 24/7
    • Monitoring network (in development): latency checks across the globe
    • 99.9%+ effective availability through rapid failover
    • Open-source DNS transition planned (see Roadmap)

    RPC configuration

    • 100 req/s without API key
    • 2MB max request size / 7MB max response size
    • 256 RPC subscriptions per connection

    Performance

    DeServe delivers the lowest latency among all major Polkadot RPC providers, verified via Compare Nodes, a global RPC performance inspector.

    ComparisonContinentsRegions
    DeServe vs IBP5/618-20/26
    DeServe vs OnFinality6/625/26
    DeServe vs Dwellir6/624/26
    DeServe vs LuckyFriday6/624/26

    Full benchmark runs:

    • DeServe vs IBP: Run 1, Run 2, Run 3
    • DeServe vs OnFinality: Run 1
    • DeServe vs LuckyFriday: Run 1
    • DeServe vs Dwellir: Run 1

    Screenshot 2026-03-31 at 17.05.21

    Cost Comparison

    IBP is currently the only other provider offering a global geo-steered RPC service, making it the most appropriate reference for cost comparison.

    Note that IBP operates on a 2N redundancy model, while DeServe operates on a single-instance model with rapid failover through backups, as detailed in the Monitoring & High Availability section.

    Given the current cost constraints of the Polkadot ecosystem, we find that single instance per location with backup mechanisms in place should be sufficient under a highly responsive load-balancing system. DeServe’s current setup monitors endpoints every 15 seconds, immediately removing any unreachable endpoint from the pool.

    IBP costs for Paseo are taken from the same billing view as the Polkadot and Kusama figures.

    IBPDeServe
    Paseo Relay Chain$17,428.10$3,486.00
    Asset Hub$5,101.06$1,020.00
    Ethereum RPC$538.30$107.00
    Bridge Hub$4,002.82$800.00
    Collectives$4,002.82$800.00
    Coretime$4,002.82$800.00
    People$4,002.82$800.00
    TOTAL$39,078.74$7,813.00
    vs. IBP-80% cheaper

    Our cost model is illustrated in detail in the initial forum post. DeServe also provides GeoDNS services for free as part of the package, whereas IBP charges $1,200.00/month for this service. DeServe also comes without curator payments, which add further overhead to bounty-based programs. IBP curator payments add approximately $3,400.00/month in additional overhead (reference).

    Operation & Payment Details

    Payment model

    • First payment $11,719.00: half of the first three months ($7,813.00 × 3 × 0.5), requested upfront to bootstrap the global rollout
    • Second payment $11,720.00: remaining half of the first three months, requested at the end of month 3 alongside the first transparency and performance report
    • Subsequent payments $23,439.00/quarter: 3-monthly retroactive proposals alongside full transparency reports

    Payment terms

    • Stable or native coin (USDT, USDC, or DOT): first proposal submitted in USDT given current DOT valuations
    • No lock-in: the treasury can cancel anytime
    • Via regular spends: no long-term bounty top-ups or commitment
    • Monthly transparency reports: expenses, performance, and request analytics
    • Public monitors: service health and performance, live at public dashboard
    • 99.9%+ uptime SLA: basis for payment validation

    Labour costs

    Labour costs for the current alpha phase are excluded from this proposal and covered by Helikon. As DeServe matures, operator labour costs will be standardized through protocol governance.

    Roadmap

    First 3 Months

    • All Paseo services live within week 2 of proposal approval: Paseo Relay Chain, Asset Hub, Bridge Hub, Collectives, Coretime, People
    • Monitoring network: real-time latency and health checks across all regions
    • DeServe website: live node map, performance data, endpoints, and developer documentation (live at deserve.network)
    • Open-source DNS: replacing Cloudflare for geo-steered load balancing, integrated with the monitoring network
    • Polkadot-native provider onboarding: begin replacing cloud providers with native Polkadot infrastructure providers, onboarding criteria to be published
    • Governance alpha phase: managed and governed by Helikon
    • DeServe Unpaper: protocol design and vision document

    First 6 Months

    • Complete Polkadot-native operator onboarding
    • Governance beta phase: network committee of ≥3 native operators
    • On-chain service provision: on-chain payments, proofs, and governance, built on Polkadot

    Submerge Commitment

    Submerge is a data and compliance platform for Polkadot SDK chains, currently in development by Helikon. Submerge has received treasury funding and is behind schedule. Its two main components, Crystal (a chain indexer), Mycelium (a cross-chain indexer), along with their APIs for all supported chains will be delivered before any further on-chain submission for DeServe.

    About Helikon

    Helikon is a Polkadot-native infrastructure and software development collective based in İstanbul. A regular contributor to the Polkadot ecosystem at both the development and governance levels since late 2020:

    • 5 active Kusama & Polkadot validators, former 1KV & Decentralized Nodes member
    • Rank-6 ex-IBP member: infrastructure services for 26 blockchains
    • Two-time Decentralized Voices delegate, once as founder of Permanence DAO
    • Recently saved and revived Multix (post 1, post 2, post 3), a >$500K investment funded through Polkadot treasury proposal #236 and referendum #120, and child bounties 36_10 and 36_3054.
    • Maintaining SubVT (iOS & Telegram Kusama/Polkadot), Chain Console, Chainviz/alpha, followthedot
    • Built dv.report - analysis dashboard for the Decentralized Voices program cohorts 4 and 5
    • Developing Submerge - data & compliance platform for Polkadot SDK chains

    Contact

    • [email protected]
    • @helikonlabs
    • @kukabi_
    • Helikon GitHub
    • kukabi GitHub
    • Forum
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    inSmall Spender|27 days ago

    #1879 DeServe.network Global Polkadot Archive RPC Deployment - Proposal #1

    ℹ️ Please view the counterpart proposals:

    • Kusama proposal live at referendum #646
    • Paseo proposal live at referendum #1880

    Summary

    This proposal is for the global deployment of a progressively decentralized archive RPC network for Polkadot and its system parachains. Please view the detailed forum post for the complete background of the initial deployment.

    DeServe is:

    • Global RPC infrastructure - 14 locations, widest coverage
    • Geo-steered load balancing
    • Lowest latency among all major Polkadot RPC providers
    • By a Polkadot-native infrastructure & software builder, ex-IBP Rank-6 member
    • Path to on-chain, general-purpose infrastructure (DePIN)
    • Launched on March 31st, 2026 as a single-chain deployment, >53M req/24h by day 10
    • Testnet live on Paseo, para id 5150 (telemetry), proof of on-chain commitment, currently running a shell runtime with business logic upgrade planned
    • 80% cheaper than IBP
    • Webpage live at deserve.network
    • Developer documentation: docs.deserve.network

    This proposal requests $24,112.00 as the first payment, half of the first three months, to bootstrap the global rollout of all Polkadot services. Subsequent payments will be requested via 3-monthly retroactive proposals, alongside full transparency reports covering expenses, performance, and request analytics.

    Initial Traction & Updates

    The following X posts document DeServe's first days of deployment:

    • Launch announcement for Polkadot Asset Hub (post)
    • >1.7M requests on day 1, Ethereum-compatible RPC deployment (post)
    • >45M requests/24h, deserve.network launch (post)
    • >50M requests/24h, docs.deserve.network launch (post)
    • >53M requests/24h, Polkadot Coretime rollout and public dashboard launch (post)

    Over the first two weeks of deployment, DeServe has served over 500 million requests, and is currently serving >36M requests/day.

    Live request analytics are available at the public dashboard.

    Screenshot 2026-04-15 at 08.27.05.png

    Deployment & Coverage

    Screenshot 2026-04-15 at 07.52.39.png

    Current deployment

    • Polkadot Asset Hub Archive RPC & Ethereum-compatible RPC (endpoints)
    • Polkadot Coretime Archive RPC (endpoints)

    Complete Polkadot rollout under this proposal

    • Polkadot Relay Chain
    • Bridge Hub
    • Collectives
    • People
    ChainArchive RPCETH RPCStatus
    Polkadot Relay Chain✅-To be deployed
    Asset Hub✅✅Live
    Coretime✅-Live
    Bridge Hub✅-To be deployed
    Collectives✅-To be deployed
    People✅-To be deployed

    Infrastructure

    • 14 locations across 6 continents, 7 providers including Helikon
      • Atlanta, GA, US
      • Gravelines, FR
      • İstanbul, TR
      • Johannesburg, ZA
      • Limburg, DE
      • London, UK
      • Miami, FL, US
      • Montreal, CA
      • Mumbai, IN
      • Seattle, WA, US
      • Sao Paulo, BR
      • Singapore, SG
      • Sydney, AU
      • Warsaw, PL
    • 1G–10G uplink bandwidth
    • Unmetered traffic on most nodes
    • 950GB–14.72TB NVMe storage per node
    • ECC RAM

    Monitoring and High Availability

    • Geo-steered load balancing: requests routed to the nearest node
    • 15-second health checks: unreachable nodes removed from the pool
    • Quick recovery from low-cost backup storage preferred over 2N redundancy for cost-efficiency
    • Prometheus & Grafana monitoring and alerting across all nodes 24/7
    • Monitoring network (in development): latency checks across the globe
    • 99.9%+ effective availability through rapid failover
    • Open-source DNS transition planned (see Roadmap)

    RPC configuration

    • 100 req/s without API key
    • 2MB max request size / 7MB max response size
    • 256 RPC subscriptions per connection

    Performance

    DeServe delivers the lowest latency among all major Polkadot RPC providers, verified via Compare Nodes, a global RPC performance inspector.

    ComparisonContinentsRegions
    DeServe vs IBP5/618-20/26
    DeServe vs OnFinality6/625/26
    DeServe vs Dwellir6/624/26
    DeServe vs LuckyFriday6/624/26

    Full benchmark runs:

    • DeServe vs IBP: Run 1, Run 2, Run 3
    • DeServe vs OnFinality: Run 1
    • DeServe vs LuckyFriday: Run 1
    • DeServe vs Dwellir: Run 1

    Screenshot 2026-03-31 at 17.05.21.png

    Cost Comparison

    IBP is currently the only other provider offering a global geo-steered RPC service, making it the most appropriate reference for cost comparison.

    Note that IBP operates on a 2N redundancy model, while DeServe operates on a single-instance model with rapid failover through backups, as detailed in the Monitoring & High Availability section.

    Given the current cost constraints of the Polkadot ecosystem, we find that single instance per location with backup mechanisms in place should be sufficient under a highly responsive load-balancing system. DeServe’s current setup monitors endpoints every 15 seconds, immediately removing any unreachable endpoint from the pool.

    The compared numbers below are taken from IBP dashboard billing view.

    IBPDeServe
    Polkadot Relay Chain$48,399.18$9,680.00
    Asset Hub$10,166.34$2,035.00
    Ethereum RPC$538.30$107.00
    Bridge Hub$6,377.54$1,275.00
    Collectives$5,046.02$1,010.00
    Coretime$4,785.22$958.00
    People$5,046.02$1,010.00
    TOTAL$80,358.62$16,075.00
    vs. IBP-80% cheaper

    Our cost model is illustrated in detail in the initial forum post. DeServe also provides GeoDNS services for free as part of the package, whereas IBP charges $1,200.00/month for this service. DeServe also comes without curator payments, which add further overhead to bounty-based programs. IBP curator payments add approximately $3,400.00/month in additional overhead (reference).

    Operation & Payment Details

    Payment model

    • First payment $24,112.00: half of the first three months ($16,075.00 × 3 × 0.5), requested upfront to bootstrap the global rollout
    • Second payment $24,113.00: remaining half of the first three months, requested at the end of month 3 alongside the first transparency and performance report
    • Subsequent payments $48,225.00/quarter: 3-monthly retroactive proposals alongside full transparency reports

    Payment terms

    • Stable or native coin (USDT, USDC, or DOT): first proposal submitted in USDT given current DOT valuations
    • No lock-in: the treasury can cancel anytime
    • Via regular spends: no long-term bounty top-ups or commitment
    • Monthly transparency reports: expenses, performance, and request analytics
    • Public monitors: service health and performance, live at public dashboard
    • 99.9%+ uptime SLA: basis for payment validation

    Labour costs

    Labour costs for the current alpha phase are excluded from this proposal and covered by Helikon. As DeServe matures, operator labour costs will be standardized through protocol governance.

    Roadmap

    First 3 Months

    • All remaining services live within week 2 of proposal approval: Polkadot Relay Chain, Bridge Hub, Collectives, People
    • Monitoring network: real-time latency and health checks across all regions
    • DeServe website: live node map, performance data, endpoints, and developer documentation (live at deserve.network)
    • Open-source DNS: replacing Cloudflare for geo-steered load balancing, integrated with the monitoring network
    • Polkadot-native provider onboarding: begin replacing cloud providers with native Polkadot infrastructure providers, onboarding criteria to be published
    • Governance alpha phase: managed and governed by Helikon
    • DeServe Unpaper: protocol design and vision document

    First 6 Months

    • Complete Polkadot-native operator onboarding
    • Governance beta phase: network committee of ≥3 native operators
    • On-chain service provision: on-chain payments, proofs, and governance, built on Polkadot

    Submerge Commitment

    Submerge is a data and compliance platform for Polkadot SDK chains, currently in development by Helikon. Submerge has received treasury funding and is behind schedule. Its two main components, Crystal (a chain indexer), Mycelium (a cross-chain indexer), along with their APIs for all supported chains will be delivered before any further on-chain submission for DeServe.

    About Helikon

    Helikon is a Polkadot-native infrastructure and software development collective based in İstanbul. A regular contributor to the Polkadot ecosystem at both the development and governance levels since late 2020:

    • 5 active Kusama & Polkadot validators, former 1KV & Decentralized Nodes member
    • Rank-6 ex-IBP member: infrastructure services for 26 blockchains
    • Two-time Decentralized Voices delegate, once as founder of Permanence DAO
    • Recently saved and revived Multix (post 1, post 2, post 3), a >$500K investment funded through Polkadot treasury proposal #236 and referendum #120, and child bounties 36_10 and 36_3054.
    • Maintaining SubVT (iOS & Telegram Kusama/Polkadot), Chain Console, Chainviz/alpha, followthedot
    • Built dv.report - analysis dashboard for the Decentralized Voices program cohorts 4 and 5
    • Developing Submerge - data & compliance platform for Polkadot SDK chains

    Contact

    • [email protected]
    • @helikonlabs
    • @kukabi_
    • Helikon GitHub
    • kukabi GitHub
    • Forum
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    83.6K USDC
    Deciding

    inSmall Spender|7 months ago

    #1767 Canceled; New Proposal considering feedback: #1776 (De-Risking the Treasury)

    This Referendum is canceled. Please (continue to) vote Nay.

    A new version incorporating the feedback received here is up for vote: New Proposal


    Voters have become increasingly cautious, making it harder for projects to gain approval for their proposals. Our project introduces a clawback mechanism to significantly reduce risks to the Polkadot Treasury. By implementing this safeguard, we aim to lower financial exposure and provide voters with peace of mind to confidently approve funding for impactful projects.

    With our tool, a group of decentralized treasury guardians is incentivized to oversee scheduled payouts and intervene when necessary to protect the Treasury.

    Key features of our proposal:

    • No upfront payments are requested.
    • All payouts are tied to milestone delivery, with sufficient time for the community to review and delay/ cancel disbursements if needed to ensure accountability on our behalf.Milestone Delivery Deadlines:
      Milestone 1: Nov 9 2025 -> Scheduled Payout: Dec 29 2025
      Milestone 2: Dec 7 2025 -> Scheduled Payout: Jan 26 2026
      Milestone 3: Jan 4 2026 -> Scheduled Payout: Feb 23 2026
      Milestone 4: Feb 1 2026 -> Scheduled Payout: Mar 23 2026
      Milestone 5: Mar 1 2026 -> Scheduled Payout: Apr 20 2026
      Milestone 6: May 29 2026 -> Scheduled Payout: May 18 2026

    We are passionate about leading the charge to de-risk the Treasury, enhance its efficiency, and better align the interests of token holders and proposers. We eagerly look forward to collaborating with the Polkadot community and new + existing ecosystem teams to achieve these goals.

    Read our full proposal here.

    0 likes|1 dislikes|21 comments

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    Treasury

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    polkadot28.01M DOT
    USDC3.34M USDC
    USDT6.67M USDT
    MYTH0.00 MYTH
    DOT:$1.33
    -2.04%
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