Blog

Polkadot founder Gavin Wood reflects on the key events within the ecosystem during 2023, and provides a vision of how 2024 might pan out.

A look at DOT token utility and the different ways DOT can be used in the Polkadot ecosystem.

A look at Polkadot's new governance model, Polkadot OpenGov, increasing the decentralization, agility, and efficiency of Polkadot's pioneering on-chain governance system.

A proposed roadmap for upcoming developments on Polkadot. Get the latest status on asynchronous backing, parathreads, XCMv3, governance, common-good parachains and more.

Read the proposal for Polkadot's next-generation governance system - currently known as Gov2 - to discover how it aims to advance the decentralisation of the network.

With a turnout just shy of one third of the tokens, the recent Polkadot redenomination poll was a major result for stakeholder decision-making. This number is all the more impressive considering that both the Web3 Foundation and Parity Technologies abstained from the voting.

A vote has been started that will alter the course of Polkadot and define the final denomination of its native DOT token. It affects all Polkadot stakeholders. If you have claimed your DOT on the mainnet, or you plan to, then you can — and should! — vote.

On-chain governance and autonomous enactment give the token holders agency, the vehicle to express their opinions and the guarantees about the impact that their expression has.

The new paper Overview of Polkadot and its Design Considerations expands on the white paper, presenting a comprehensive and updated description of Polkadot’s design components and subprotocols. Some of these are outlined here.

A referendum was just held on Kusama regarding whether or not to redenominate DOTs on Polkadot in a 1:100 ratio. Web3 Foundation used this referendum to gauge sentiment from the community before the launch of Polkadot.

Kusama is Polkadot’s canary network. It is an early, unaudited, and wholly experimental network, designed to help understand how the various cutting-edge technologies introduced in areas including governance, staking and sharding work under real economic conditions

Note: Everything described here is subject to change before Polkadot’s initial mainnet launch, which is targeted for the end of 2019 depending on security audits and launch provisions outside of our control. It is also very likely that once Polkadot goes live, the network will upgrade the governance mechanisms described here. To stay up-to-date, follow Polkadot on Twitter for future announcements or keep an eye on the Polkadot Wiki, where the details of the governance mechanisms will be updated