ParaSpell✨ XCM Tools - 12 Months of Maintenance and Server cost coverage
Dear Polkadot community,
Meet ParaSpell:
A set of powerful XCM Tools ready to elevate your project cross-chain experience.
What is ParaSpell currently working on full-time:
- XCM SDK 🪄: A tool designed to unify the cross-chain experience on Polkadot and serve as a layer 2 protocol that enables seamless integration of XCM into your decentralized applications. Having three versions: PolkadotAPI Version, PolkadotJS Version & Dedot Version as the
firstandonlyXCM SDK in the ecosystem. All of the SDKs support extension packages called Swap (Formerly known as XCM Router), EVM, & Snowbridge. - XCM API ⚡️: An API that provides the ability to integrate XCM interoperability into your decentralized application in package-less way offloading heavy computing tasks from your decentralized application, and reducing associated costs.
- XCM Analyser 🔎 - Analyser package to convert XCM locations into a human-readable format.
- XCM Visualizer 🖼️ - An application developed to visualize XCM within the Polkadot ecosystem.
Full tool overview also available on ParaSpell landing page.
Other resources:
- PBA Podcast about ParaSpell
- ParaSpell Docs
- ParaSpell achievements and international research publications
Let's be more concrete about the individual tools.
The XCM SDK that just works.
Created when there were no other SDKs for XCM in the ecosystem. At the sole beginning of Polkadot. Born from a wild idea to unify the XCM experience in the ecosystem. Meet battle-hardened and well-established XCM SDK.
✨ Marked as the go-to XCM SDK by the deprecated Asset Transfer API and part of the official Polkadot documentation. Now more universal than ever, supporting all three JavaScript clients in the ecosystem (PAPI, DEDOT, PJS) and easily expandable with Swap, EVM, and Snowbridge extensions in all of the mentioned versions. The level of generality and universality is unmatched.
What the XCM SDK Provides:
- 🥇 First SDK to also support the
PAPI,DedotandPJSpackages. - API fail-safe mechanisms (API endpoint doesn't work? No worries, SDK automatically switches to the next working one)
- XCM Dry running and revolutionary XCM Preview (See if your messages fail with Dryrun, but also preview if they pass without you having to have any balance with Preview)
- Ability to transfer XCM messages from/to
62different XCM compatible Parachains & Relay chains (Number of compatible chains fluctuates as some of them are added/removed) - Support for ecosystem bridges such as
Polkadot<>Kusama bridgeorPolkadot<>Ethereum bridge(Snowbridge) - All three XCM transfer scenarios in one line (
UMP- Para to Relay,DMP- Relay to Para,HRMP- Para to Para) - Multiple choices for asset selection - id, symbol, multilocation, multiasset selection
- Customizable XCM version (If the preselected version stops working, you can select one that works with just one simple parameter)
- Testing on testnet or localhost (You can input custom WS port parameter or even custom Parachain ID)
- Multiple important Asset queries for front-end such as
getExistentialDeposit,getAssetBalance,getTransferableAmountandgetTransferInfowhich query asset and balance data directly from the chain of your choice. - Other front-end-related data queries, such as XCM Pallet support queries, Asset support queries, and more (all of these are instant because they are in the SDK map).
- XCM Batch transfers (Send multiple XCM messages at once)
- Ability to comprehensively add your own Parachains and/or assets
- Ability to expand your SDK's standard functionality with extensions such as Swap (Formerly XCM Router), EVM, Snowbridge. They are universally supported for all three versions (PAPI, DEDOT, PJS)
XCM SDK has, since it was introduced 1,367 days ago (September 25th. 2022) had a total of 196,000+ downloads on NPMJS
Want to go packageless and save space? We've got you
Meet the award-winning and 🥇 first XCM API in the ecosystem. XCM API packs every XCM SDK feature and allows you to implement XCM packagelessly.
Unable to decide? A couple of reasons why the XCM API might be the right way for your project:
- Built-in Token authentication for DDoS prevention (No authentication required for up to 100 req/min)
- Designed for simple private deployment (Need faster responses? Have servers that are faster? Feel free to deploy API yourself! You can also build business models on top of this when there are other projects needing faster responses. Opportunities are limitless.
- XCM API offloads your server from computing required to construct calls (You receive the constructed message already)
- You save server costs!
- Package-less integration (No need to install anything compared to SDK alternatives)
- Simple to implement (Constructed to be as dev-friendly as possible)
- Built in compatibility with state-of-the-art Polkadot API - PAPI library
- It is free for everyone to request more requests per minute!
XCM API Served since its launch 1,014 days ago (September 13th. 2023) a total of 4,571,693 requests and had 99.95% uptime
Unable to decode complex XCM? Say no more
Developed in collaboration with PolkadotJS (Now implemented in PolkadotJS Extension-UI) XCM-Analyser lets you decode XCM Multilocations into human-readable format while being lightweight with minimalistic dependency list.
What are pros of XCM Analyser?
- Minimalistic library (No heavy dependencies)
- Decoding individual junctions or entire XCM Calls
- Support for JSON or Object syntax
XCM Analyser has, since it was introduced 799 days ago (Apr 15th. 2024) had a total of 19,000+ downloads on NPMJS
Exploring XCM in stunning, universe-like 3D Visualization was never this straightforward
Discover award-winning and first XCM-Visualization oriented tool in the ecosystem - XCM Visualizer. Built to enhance data science around XCM. Scientists can visualize XCM-related information with ease in remarkable 3D and 2D visualizations.
See the Value Behind the Data:
- Browse all 4 ecosystem XCM Data (Polkadot, Kusama, Paseo, Westend)
- Gain insights into network scalability over time with detailed historical analysis
- Identify the most active chains in cross-chain messaging
- Monitor the accounts with the highest cross-chain messaging activity
- Discover the most frequently used channels
- Track the most commonly transferred assets
- Access comprehensive details for any selected chain, including simultaneous multi-chain analysis
- Download your selected chains graph or it's data to directly use them in research articles or next data processing
- See live XCM Data and message progress with the new XCM Live Data tab.
Implementation made easy with XCM Tools Docs
Explore comprehensive documentation, which covers just about every topic developers will encounter when implementing XCM and XCM Tools into their apps.
Docs had a total of 412 refactor and update deployments on GitHub pages since their launch
Play with XCM Tools in Playground
Get hands-on with XCM tools instantly in an interactive playground. No setup is needed — just experiment, see real-time results and explore the full potential of XCM solutions for your projects.
ParaSpell's Team and history:
- By now, we have completed 6 Web 3 Foundation grants meant to fund the development of ParaSpell's common good tools. This goes to show our dedication to the topic and the community. They can be observed here: Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, Phase 4 and Phase 5. We are also pushing development onwards in other cross-chain topics in the ecosystem. For example, the xcNFT pallet meant to allow users to transfer NFTs through XCM - Link.
- We have been granted trust from the Kusama community multiple times in the following maintenance proposals that helped us further perfect XCM Tools: Maintenance 1, Maintenance 2 and Maintenance 3. Maintenance 2 is also historically 🥇first maintenance-related referenda to receive 100% AYE support, for which we are very thankful! Our recent and longest maintenance was granted to us by the Polkadot community in Maintenance 4 - also huge thank you.
- Some of XCM Tools are partially / fully funded by participation in Hackathons (To maximize self-sufficiency when developing state-of-the-art tools).
- XCM API was co-funded with 🥇first place at the Polkadot Global Series APAC 2023 Hackathon in the XCM Integration track. Here is the final announcement post.
- The XCM Visualizer was fully funded by 🥈second place at the Polkadot Global Series North America 2024 Hackathon in the XCM Integration track. Here is the result announcement
- Knowledge and funds are reinvested into professional research articles 👨🏫 - Promoting Polkadot and ParaSpell in the long run at international research conferences (We occupy the first page when you search “Polkadot XCM” on Google Scholar). Conferences we choose are with higher standards and higher Z-indexes. So far, we have been able to publish a total of 8 professional research articles and 2 journals:
- Sharing fungible assets across Polkadot Paraverse: IEEE ICECET 2022 - link
- Enhancing XCMP Interoperability Across Polkadot Paraverse: IEEE ICBC 2023 - link
- ParaSpell XCM SDK: A New Protocol for Interoperability in Polkadot Paraverse: IEEE BCCA 2023 - link
- Cross-Chain Payments on Blockchain Networks: An Apartment Booking Use-Case: ACM SAC 2024 - link
- Interlinked Transactions: Revolutionizing Apartment Bookings through Cross-Chain Payments: IEEE BCCA 2024 - link
- Cross-Chain Non-Fungible Assets Sharing on Polkadot: IEEE Brains 2024 - link
- Protocol for unifying cross-chain liquidity on Polkadot: Frontiers in Blockchain Journal 2024 - link
- Decentralized Bridge Between Polkadot and Cosmos: ACM SAC 2025 - link
- UniSpell: Universal Adapter for Interoperability in Polkadot Paraverse: Cluster Computing Journal 2025 - link
- Understanding Cross-Chain Message Passing Delays in Polkadot: An Experimental Perspective 2025 - link
Other results worth mentioning
Our initiative to create a 🐞 bug bounty pool to support newcomming developers & developers that are already in the ecosystem - supported by the Polkadot treasury has so far transparently distributed $4,409.38 out of $10,000.
The team behind the project has been hacking in the Polkadot ecosystem for a while now.
Consisting of 2 members:
- Dušan Morháč: PBA 2023 Buenos Aires Alumni, Building in ecosystem since 2021, LINKEDIN, GITHUB.
- Michael Absolon: PBA 2025 in Lucerne Alumni Typescript expert with 5 years of professional experience, Building in the ecosystem since 2022, LINKEDIN, GITHUB.
Both team members achieved their Master's degrees in June 2024 and are working on ParaSpell full-time. Dušan continues to study for a Doctoral degree (To be able to continue research passion and release more research papers for Polkadot and ParaSpell).
Aim of this proposal:
The ParaSpell team responsible for developing and maintaining the XCM Tools stack seeks 12 months of maintenance funding to cover the costs of two full-time team members, infrastructure, servers, and domains. The tools and miscellaneous sites (Playground, Docs, Landing page, and more) will be fully maintained for the mentioned period starting on 1st August 2026 and ending on 1st August 2027. This proposal allows all tools to remain completely free for the entire Polkadot and Kusama communities. It also allows the ParaSpell team to dedicate time to help other teams that wish to implement XCM Tools.
What You Gain by Implementing ParaSpell’s XCM Tools
- Accelerated Integration with Personalized Support
- Gain free, hands-on assistance from the ParaSpell team via a private Telegram group. Our typical response time is within minutes. When your deadlines are tight, we’re also available for live calls. (You can reach out via the form on the ParaSpell landing page.)
- Reliable Issue Resolution
- Have a problem? Simply open an issue in the relevant GitHub repository, and we’ll help resolve it promptly.
- Continuous Improvements & New Features
- Every tool in the ParaSpell suite receives regular updates, including feature enhancements and monthly maintenance checks for ever-updating parachains and pallets.
- Comprehensive Documentation
- Each XCM Tool is backed by thorough, always up-to-date developer-focused documentation to make your integration process easier.
- Production-Ready Reliability
- We test and verify compatibility with parachains and their XCM-related pallets every month and do ad-hoc fixes if any chain updates occur in the meantime to ensure everything stays functional and secure.
- 100% Open Source & Free
- There are no subscriptions, fees, or hidden costs. ParaSpell is committed to delivering common-good software for the Polkadot ecosystem—forever free and open-source.
The Bottom Line is that ParaSpell’s XCM Tools help you build faster, safer, and more affordable dApps without compromising on quality.
What’s in it for Non-Developers & dApp Users
- Faster Access to dApps
- XCM Tools drastically reduce development time, meaning your favorite features and cross-chain functionalities arrive much sooner.
- Confidence in Cross-Chain Safety
- XCM Tools are rigorously tested, regularly updated, and built by ecosystem veterans, helping dApps avoid costly cross-chain asset issues.
- Try it Yourself
- You can try all of the tools yourself without needing to code! Explore and experiment with XCM capabilities directly via our XCM Tools Playground.
- Long-Term Commitment to the Ecosystem
- Our tools are maintained out of passion, not profit. Even with limited funding, we’ll continue to support the ecosystem — albeit at a slower pace. You won’t wake up to a broken dApp or a removed feature.
- Community-Driven, Not Commercial
- There is no business model behind XCM Tools. They exist solely to serve the community, making Polkadot-based dApp development and usage more accessible for everyone.
Bottom Line: By supporting ParaSpell, you support faster innovation, safer cross-chain experiences, and a healthier Polkadot ecosystem.
Proposal schedule
- Discussion: 23. June. 2026 - 30. June. 2026
- Voting: 1. July. 2026 - 28. July. 2026
Proposal ask
The proposal seeks 57.600$ worth of funding for 12 months of various maintenance tasks, research, and improvement tasks, as well as assistance to other teams. This is divided into 120 hours per month, 4.800$ per month, and 40$ per developer work hour. More information can be found in the full proposal document.
Documents associated with the proposal:
Full proposal (Contains detailed information on how we plan to use funds)
Comments (6)
Requested
Proposal Passed
Hello, previous supporters here. Weekly users of it too through Encointer's KSM/DOT bridge UI. Could you comment and clarify this statement please:
"Due to the current economic situation of Polkadot and deprioritization of XCM by Parity"
Could you or anyone "in the know" can assure that XCM will continue development by Parity or is it being slowly decommissioned or "being transferred to the community"?
This really came as a surprise tbh.
@SAXEMBERG/Governance Hello, XCM is not going anywhere. It's THE communication format between Polkadot parachains and is integrated with almost every part of the system. The only thing that's changing is that within Parity we're focusing more on maintenance and stability of XCM rather than new features in the format itself, as most of our focus has moved to developing open-source prototypes of the tech being applied (which includes XCM). As you may remember, after XCMv3, v4 and v5 came out with a bunch of changes and new features which were needed, but also a lot for tools and teams to ingest. The plan right now is to keep XCMv5 stable (since we believe it's in a good spot) and improve the tooling around it.
I like that Paraspell acknowledges this and asks for a reduced price for maintenance of their tool. I personally use the Paraspell SDK to create XCMs, either on their playground or on the PAPI dev console which recently added a cross-chain transfers tab powered by their SDK. It's been very useful. We previously had a "Teleport" section in Polkadot JS Apps which didn't cover all scenarios or provided so much information about whether or not the transfer would succeed. I believe it's a mature SDK and it's important to keep on maintaining these tools so they can make everyone's lives easier in the Polkadot ecosystem.
Hey @SAXEMBERG/Governance,
We apologize for the confusion caused by the wording in our proposal.
For additional context, we also addressed this on X: https://x.com/paraspell/status/2073490341026509292
The point we intended to communicate is that XCM has reached a high level of maturity. Rather than introducing frequent protocol changes, the current focus is on maintaining a stable XCM V5, allowing parachain teams to build and operate on a dependable standard. This reflects a shift in development priorities toward stability and ecosystem reliability, not a reduction in the importance of XCM. XCM remains a core component of the Polkadot ecosystem and is not being decommissioned. We'll also ask Cisco at Parity to provide you with additional clarification from a protocol perspective.
For transparency, the original wording in our proposal stated:
The ParaSpell team responsible for developing and maintaining the XCM Tools stack seeks 12 months of maintenance funding to cover the costs of two full-time team members, infrastructure, servers, and domains. The cost has been significantly reduced compared to the previous maintenance request due to the current economic situation of the Treasury and XCM being partially deprioritized.
To better reflect the current state of the ecosystem and avoid misinterpretation, we have updated it to:
The ParaSpell team responsible for developing and maintaining the XCM Tools stack seeks 12 months of maintenance funding to cover the costs of two full-time team members, infrastructure, servers, and domains. The cost has been significantly reduced compared to the previous maintenance request due to the current economic situation of the Treasury and the increasing maturity of the XCM ecosystem, which has shifted development efforts from rapid feature expansion toward long-term maintenance, stability, and ecosystem support.
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