Polkadot Q3 Development Summary Native USDC will enter the ecosystem, staking and independent account data continue to grow.

Polkadot Q3 Development Summary Native USDC integration, growing staking and independent account data.

Author: Polkadot Official Blog

In the third quarter of 2023, the Polkadot ecosystem continued to grow, with significant growth in native staking, on-chain events, and independent accounts. In addition, development activity in the GitHub repository remained high.

Five new parachain teams have obtained slots, representing diverse Web3 use cases such as DAO, metaverse, IoT, and sustainable energy. Previously proposed important technical upgrades, including agile core time and asynchronous support, are closer to maturity. Other major news includes the arrival of native USDC.

Polkadot’s Data Growth

Polkadot’s staking metrics performed well in the third quarter. The total staked DOT increased from 578 million DOT in the previous quarter to 663 million DOT, with the staked amount accounting for nearly 49% of the total DOT supply (close to the current target staking rate of 52.5%).

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The nomination pool, which helps users who do not have enough DOT to nominate their own validators and those who prefer a more passive staking experience, has also been very successful. Since its launch in November 2022, the nomination pool had 15,281 members and staked over 7 million DOT at the end of the third quarter.

The continuous growth of the Polkadot ecosystem has led to significant growth in two important metrics:

• Number of on-chain events: The graph above shows all on-chain events recordable on all parachains of Polkadot, including successful transfers, governance participation, staking events, and completion of smart contracts. The graph clearly shows how this number has been growing every month since March, reaching over 190 million events, more than double the level in December 2022.
• Number of independent accounts: Judging by all the public key addresses in the ecosystem, this number reached a new high in September, nearly 4.3 million, rising every month since January, with a 10% increase compared to the previous quarter and a 16% increase compared to the beginning of the year.

Development activity remains strong: for two consecutive quarters, the Polkadot code repository has recorded over 49,000 GitHub commits. According to data from Santiment, this number continues to be higher than any other Web3 project.

Another impressive data point is the quarter-on-quarter growth of 20% in the sending of XCM messages, demonstrating increased cross-chain activities in the ecosystem. XCM is a cross-consensus messaging protocol that supports interoperability within Polkadot and with other ecosystems through bridges.

Rapid Ecological Expansion

A series of high-frequency parachain auctions have brought a large number of new projects into the Polkadot ecosystem. They are:

1. peaq allows everyone to build a decentralized physical infrastructure network (#DePIN) that incentivizes the community to connect hardware devices.
2. Bit.Country is a user-created metaverse platform that allows users to launch their own metaverse in 12 seconds and simplify the creation process through an existing content library.
3. InvArch is a multi-chain DAO infrastructure project that provides a dynamic multi-signature solution for the entire Polkadot ecosystem.
4. Energy Web uses Web3 technology to help large companies such as Shell, Vodafone, and Volkswagen accelerate their decarbonization strategies.
5. Nodle is an Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity provider that establishes a low-energy Bluetooth-driven network to help companies and cities connect.

Meanwhile, in the third quarter, Astar Network also renewed its parallel chain slot to ensure long-term commitment within the Polkadot ecosystem after the expiration of the existing lease.

Technical Upgrades

The decentralized technology consulting firm Fellowship of Polkadot has approved the development of a dedicated system chain for purchasing and trading future block space on Polkadot.

Essentially, this means that the periodic, sales-based method of allocating Polkadot core time (which is part of the “Agile Core Time” proposal upgrade) has taken another step forward.

The Agile Core Time proposal was initially proposed by Polkadot founder Gavin Wood at the Polkadot Decoded conference in June, providing Web3 projects with a new and more flexible way to access Polkadot’s computing power, regardless of their size, scope, or growth stage.

Polkadot is transitioning from a chain-centric model to an application-centric model, similar to cloud computing services, allowing for efficient allocation of server space based on demand. Agile Core Time has been approved for further development but still requires governance approval from Polkadot to take effect officially.

Several weeks later, participants of sub0 (the Polkadot developers conference) heard exciting progress about asynchronous support. Asynchronous support is a process that simplifies the block production and validation process for parallel chains.

This upgrade is expected to bring an eight-fold increase in Polkadot’s scalability and is expected to be launched soon on the Rococo testnet. Asynchronous support is also a catalyst for a series of additional upgrades, including Agile Core Time.

Over time, asynchronous support and other upgrades are expected to enable Polkadot to support 1000+ parallel chains and over 1 million transactions per second, ensuring Polkadot is prepared for the future adoption of Web3 on a large scale.

Q3 News Highlights

Circle has started the process of launching native USDC in the Polkadot ecosystem, eliminating the need for bridged versions of stablecoins. This means that native USDC can be used in all parallel chains and dapps within the ecosystem.

Zodia Custody, a leading digital asset custody institution, announced institutional custody and staking services on Polkadot, with shareholders including Standard Chartered Bank, SBI Holdings, and Northern Trust.

Upstream provider Banxa is helping users access the Astar parallel chain through multiple payment options as it strives to integrate with the comprehensive ecosystem of Polkadot.

Snowbridge, the bridge to Ethereum, is expected to launch on Polkadot’s Canary network Kusama later this year.

Zondax has announced a new Polkadot Ledger application that will support any parallel chain in the network without the need to install a separate application for each parallel chain.

OpenZeppelin, a security and auditing expert, has completed its first batch of work to simplify the development of native ink! smart contracts on Polkadot. This includes creating easily implementable and scalable smart contract standards and translating Solidity contracts into ink!.

The third phase of the Polkadot Blockchain Academy concluded successfully at UC Berkeley in California, introducing a new founder track for entrepreneurs. The fourth and fifth phases will be held in Hong Kong and Singapore in January and May 2024, respectively.

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