A request for clarity before JAM: the people who funded this deserve a straight answer

Ecosystem
1

I’ll keep this calm, because I mean it that way, not as another rant.

Let me start with where we came from, because it matters. At the beginning the promise was big and simple: a heterogeneous multi-chain, shared security, and a token, DOT, used to govern the network, to stake for its safety, and to bond for parachains. That’s the pitch a lot of us bought into, with real money. In the middle years it changed shape: parachain auctions gave way to Polkadot 2.0 and Agile Coretime, blockspace rented on demand. And now we’re at JAM, a hard-capped DOT, and a network whose running cost the founder himself puts at “around half a billion dollars a year” [1], while describing coretime revenue as “immaterial in comparison to supply” [2]. That’s a long way from the original story, and it’s fair to say so.

In the last two weeks we got two Medium posts from Gavin on top of this. I’ll quote them rather than paraphrase, because the exact words matter.

In the first post (22 June), he states that “The JAM protocol presupposes the existence of a token” [3], argues DOT would be “an extremely suboptimal choice” [4], and reassures readers that the new token “complements and does not prejudice the other functions of DOT” [5]. It opens with the disclaimer that “No token is being offered, sold, or distributed” [6]. Fair enough. But the same post then lays out a supply, an initial owner, a preferred venue and a release path. At some point a thought exploration with a full distribution plan stops feeling like only a thought exploration.

And here’s what actually worries me, in his own words from the second post (27 June). Asked whether the new token should be sold for DOT so that demand for JAM feeds DOT, he answers “I don’t believe ‘direct’ demand is especially important” [7], and says the most obvious unit to price it in “would be dotUSD” [8]. He dismisses the single-token view as a “cryptocurrency mind-virus” [9]. Read plainly: the most valuable new resource the network creates would be sold in a stablecoin, not in DOT, and the route back to the token you actually hold becomes indirect and discretionary, left to the DAO to settle later.

So I’m not here to defend a price or attack a person. I want to ask for three things.

1. Be honest about the direction. If the plan is for the network to run more and more on a stablecoin, for a second token to carry JAM’s scarcest resource, and for governance and maybe even security to drift toward proof of personhood, then say it plainly, in one place. Not spread across posts that each sound modest alone. People can handle a clear thesis. What wears them down is assembling it themselves and then being told they misread it.

2. Tell us where value goes back to DOT, in writing. It’s a simple question. Under JAM and the new token, what is the concrete path from usage back to DOT, and is it a design commitment or just one option among several? “The DAO will decide later” isn’t much of an answer when the framing, the currency and the distribution are already being shaped now.

A philosophical point, and I’ll be honest about it. Building the web3 of the future is hard, and it genuinely costs money. Real research, real infrastructure, real years. I respect that. But there’s a contract underneath a token that nobody likes to name. People didn’t buy DOT to fund pure research. People come into a crypto market, any of them, for one of two reasons: to make money, or at the very least not to lose the savings they walked in with. That isn’t greed, it’s just the premise of the thing. A token trading on an open market is an investment, and an investment carries an implicit promise, that the value the project creates can somehow find its way back to the people who funded it.

If that promise is no longer the intention, then let’s be honest about what we’re doing. Funding a vision with no expectation of value coming back to the holder is a beautiful thing, truly, but it already has a name, and the name is a donation, or a public good, or a grant. It is not a crypto market. You can’t ask people to behave like patrons of pure research when what they were handed was a token, on an exchange, with a price chart attached. Either DOT is an asset, and then the path for value to reach holders has to be a commitment, not an afterthought. Or it’s a contribution to a vision, and then say so, and stop wrapping it in the language and venues of an investment. What isn’t fair is keeping the upside dressed as idealism while the people who put in real savings carry the whole downside.

3. Respect for the people who believed. This is the part I care about most. A lot of people put real savings into DOT over the years. Not to flip it on a Tuesday, but because they believed in the vision that was sold to them, by name, from stages. Many are down badly now. They’re not asking for a bailout, and they’re not asking anyone to promise a price. They’re asking not to be quietly repriced from “owners of the network’s value” into “holders of an optional governance key”, without a single person ever saying it out loud.

None of this is anti-JAM. JAM might genuinely be the right technical step, I’m open to that. But a community isn’t only a technical system. It’s also the people who paid for the runway while it was being built. They’re owed transparency about what their token is turning into, honesty about the trade-offs, and clarity that arrives before the decisions are framed as settled, not after.

That’s the whole ask, really. Tell us the real plan, in plain words, while there’s still time to talk about it.

Notes (verbatim from the source posts):

[1] “During 2024 we estimated that cost of running Polkadot at around half a billion dollars a year.” (Post 2, 27 June)
[2] Coretime “typically fetches up to a thousand USD per year per core. It is immaterial in comparison to supply.” (Post 2, 27 June)
[3] “The JAM protocol presupposes the existence of a token to ensure soundness in its state usage.” (Post 1, 22 June)
[4] “It is for this reason that I believe ‘DOT’ would be an extremely suboptimal choice for a JAM Service State Token.” (Post 1, 22 June)
[5] “complements and does not prejudice the other functions of DOT including as a DAO token, coretime payments, collateral and staking.” (Post 1, 22 June)
[6] “No token is being offered, sold, or distributed by me nor any legal entity I’m affiliated with.” (Post 1, 22 June)
[7] “I don’t believe ‘direct’ demand is especially important.” (Post 2, 27 June)
[8] On whether it would be sold for DOT, dotUSD or another asset: “the most obvious option to me would be dotUSD.” (Post 2, 27 June)
[9] “The idea that one token is better than two is a cryptocurrency mind-virus.” (Post 2, 27 June)

Sources: Gavin Wood, “DOT DAO and the need for $JAMKB” (Medium, 22 June 2026); “DOT DAOism under JAM: An Island Story” (Medium, 27 June 2026).

A note on the writing: English isn’t my first language, so I used Claude to help me phrase this clearly and avoid too many mistakes. The thinking, the research and the views are my own.

2

On June 12, 2026, Polkadot Asset Hub stopped producing and finalizing blocks for approximately 30 minutes between 09:10 and 09:45 UTC. Here’s how the downtime appears on the finalized block number chart from 09:00 to 10:00 UTC:

Screenshot 2026-06-29 at 15.48.37
Screenshot 2026-06-29 at 15.48.371834×634 7.4 KB

I haven’t seen a mention of this on the forum, on the Parity X account, or any other official account. The only acknowledgement I found came from Oliver on his X account: OliverTY on X: "Small technical issue with the Polkadot Asset Hub 2.3 Runtime upgrade. Should be addressed within the next hour." / X. Other than that, there has been no official postmortem, no community reaction, and no visible escalation on X or any other social platform, as far as I know.

For any serious blockchain in production, 30 minutes of downtime is a very significant event. The community is probably aware of the recent 2-hour stall on Base, the noise it caused on X, and its consequences: Vadim (AI, ⋈) on X: "Base was down for almost two hours today, and the reason is the whole story: one bad block, and nobody else to keep the chain alive. A single consensus bug sequenced one invalid block, right after block 47806542, and every block after it just stopped. Base runs a single https://t.co/L5kdAfFb5G" / X

I don’t know what signals a loss of relevance more than near-zero reaction to 30 minutes of downtime on a live blockchain. And yet, the focus of the founder and much of the community appears to be a new token. I don’t think there is much else to say.

I’ll leave Karlo’s bullseye tweet as the conclusion: hydrated karlo.eth 🌊 on X: "peeps are wilding and throwing bs ideas around a dev token for a thing that barely passed 1st milestone there are multi month block production issues... fudders aren't even trying to use the network they are theorizing and complaining that devs are doing only theoretical work https://t.co/fwsIbqRwdZ" / X

PS. I don’t intend to criticize the post or derail the discussion, but only to emphasize that if DOT and Polkadot continue to lose relevance, any future efforts risk becoming irrelevant before they even begin.

3

@kukabi Thank you for your precious work

4

@thewhiterabbitM

I completely agree with your point, and thank you for your hard work for the community. After seeing Gavin’s performance, I have completely lost confidence.

The idea that one token is better than two is a cryptocurrency mind-virus. The JAM network only made it this far thanks to DOT holders, and making a statement like that is incredibly irresponsible to DOT investors.

To Gavin Wood: Ignorance is not a shame, arrogance is.

5

@thewhiterabbitM your second ask is the one I keep coming back to: where does value go back to DOT, and is it a commitment or just an option the DAO might pick later. That is the right question, and answering it does not need a fight over whether JAM is sound or whether anyone acted in bad faith. The token design can stay roughly as Gavin laid it out.

Take his case at its strongest. Footprint is a real, inelastic resource, and a fixed-supply token mapping 1:1 to it is a clean way to keep JAM sound. I have no quarrel with a separate JAMKB at the protocol level. The gap is not there. It is in the part where he hands the value question to the DAO: sell JAMKB for dotUSD, build up a reserve, and then maybe a buyback, maybe a monthly payout, whichever governance settles on later. Every route from JAM usage back to the token you actually hold runs through a vote that has not happened yet. The one link that does not is dotUSD being collateralised by DOT, and he never sizes it.

So here is a small ask, and it is one for the DAO, since that is where he placed it anyway. Keep the token. Keep the market release. If accessibility is the worry, quote the price in dotUSD. But settle the payment in DOT. A buyer acquires DOT to complete the sale, so demand for JAM state lands on DOT directly, at the moment it happens, sized to whatever that demand turns out to be. No reserve to sit on, no later vote needed to open the valve.

Let me be honest about the limits. Settling in DOT makes the demand land directly, with no discretionary buyback in between. It does not by itself turn state into a recurring cost, and it does not clear out dead state. That is a larger design question, and I am setting it aside here on purpose. Selling in DOT now does not decide it. It only keeps the denomination right if we ever take it up.

Gavin’s answer to this is already on record. He doesn’t think “direct” demand is especially important, and says the plumbing works either way. On efficiency he may well be right. But the question in this thread is not efficiency, it is commitment. Through a reserve, the people holding DOT get something back only if a later vote decides to send it. Pay in DOT and the demand reaches them directly, vote or no vote. It is hardly a strange thing to ask, either: coretime, the other resource the network sells, is already paid in DOT. This asks the new resource to be sold the same way as the one we already have.

One line, really. Sell it in DOT.

6

@batbayar
This is the sharpest framing the thread has had, and I agree with almost all of it. You concede JAMKB at the protocol level, which is right, and isolate the only real gap: value capture handed to a vote that has not happened. Your fix closes it without that vote. Quote in dotUSD if accessibility is the worry, but settle in DOT, so demand for JAM state lands on the token directly, the moment it happens. No reserve, no valve to open later.

What makes it hard to argue against is the last point. Coretime, the other resource the network already sells, is paid in DOT. You are not asking for anything novel, just that the new resource sell like the one we already have. The burden flips: the question stops being “why sell JAMKB in DOT” and becomes “why should it be the one network resource that is not.” And it meets Gavin on his terms. He says direct demand is not important and the plumbing works. Fine, but the thread is about commitment, not efficiency. Through a reserve, holders get something back only if a later vote sends it. Settled in DOT, it reaches them either way.

The one thing I would press: this has to be settled in detail before the token launches, not after. “Launch first, the DAO decides later” is far too convenient when voting power is as concentrated as it is, with W3F and aligned entities able to carry most outcomes. Once the token is live and selling in dotUSD, the default is set and the later vote to “send value back to DOT” becomes a fight uphill against an entrenched design. The denomination is a one-line decision. Make it now, in the open, before launch, not as an option the DAO might pick once the valve is already pointing the other way. You wrote the line yourself: sell it in DOT.

7

@thewhiterabbitM The before-launch point is the part I want to build on. You are right that “settle it later” gets convenient once the default is already running and the votes to change it sit where they sit. So the question worth answering is the plain one underneath it. Where does a commitment like this actually get made, and by when.

There is an instrument for it. A standing rule about how the DAO sells what it owns is a Wish for Change. The community has used that track on JAM already, with referendum 573, when Kusama chose its own path instead of mirroring Polkadot. Denomination of the DAO’s footprint sales is that kind of call. It is not a protocol change, just the DAO setting the terms on which it releases something it fully owns. That keeps it clear of the RFC fight altogether.

And there is a clock. The move to JAM has to pass governance to happen at all, and the roadmap points to that proposal in the back half of this year. Once the upgrade is in motion the sales design takes shape with it, and an assumed dotUSD default is the part that gets hard to move after the fact. Settle the denomination before then, out in the open, and there is nothing entrenched to unwind. Leave it for after and you are back to the uphill fight you named.

On why DOT rather than a dollar unit, Gavin’s own island puts it better than I can. On that island DOT is the money the government issues, and it already sells its power, coretime, in DOT. Footprint is the island’s land. A government selling its own scarce land takes its own currency for it at the point of sale. Pricing that land in a dollar unit and parking the proceeds in a reserve, to maybe send home later if a vote agrees, is the one move that sits oddly against the rest of his own story. Quote the price in dotUSD if reach is the worry. Take DOT at settlement.

None of this should rest on one person, or arrive as a cold referendum. The thread already has harder proposals than mine on it. BizaRre would lease footprint like coretime, priced in DOT. Kingston007’s RAMTIME keeps the resource in the DAO and rents it, and lists denomination as its own question for governance, separate from the lease design. That separation is the useful part. Cadence, sell once or rent forever, is the harder fight and can take its time. Denomination is one standing line and the cheapest of the open decisions to fix early. If the people already working on this want to settle that line together before the upgrade vote, that is the version of putting it in writing that actually holds.

8

@thewhiterabbitM A week ago I ended my last post here saying the people already working on this could settle the denomination line together before the upgrade vote. That week turned out to be a busy one, so here is the state of it, and a text to react to.

W3F Research now has a design on the table: dynamically priced JAMKB via decaying deposits. A builder pays a refundable deposit, the protocol bonds the footprint on their behalf, the deposit decays toward a floor at a rate that follows occupancy, and the decayed part is DAO revenue. The shape is rental, from the researchers themselves, with the unit still left open. When I pressed that point there, Jonas agreed that “denominating the deposit in DOT looks like more direct value capture, since each allocation and top-up would have to source DOT.” In my thread, a business voice arrived at the same rental conclusion on its own: @usualsuspect grants that paying exclusively in DOT “would indeed create stronger direct buy pressure and more frontal value accrual”, and wants stablecoins accepted anyway so no builder stays away. Meanwhile the case for a dollar-steady deposit is being made in the W3F thread on predictability grounds. Every side of the trade is now on the record. The answer to your second question has not changed, though: still “a design commitment or just one option among several”.

So here is the settling, in practice. Below is a one-page draft of a Wish for Change, folded to keep this post readable. The operative part is a single paragraph:

Any allocation or release by the DOT DAO or its treasury of JAM state footprint (JAMKB, or however the DAO’s holding ends up being represented) settles in DOT. Whatever form a release takes (sale, lease, metered rental, or refundable deposit), the payment is made in DOT and any refundable part is returned in DOT. Prices may be quoted in dotUSD or any other unit.

Everything else stays open on purpose. It chooses none of the mechanisms and sets no prices. The builder-flexibility worry lives comfortably inside it: quote in dotUSD, and let front ends take whatever asset a builder shows up with and convert it at the point of payment. What the rule fixes is what the treasury settles in and holds.

It is a draft to be edited, not a text to be voted on. @Kingston007 already treats denomination as its own governance question in RAMTIME. @BizaRre priced the lease in DOT from the start. usualsuspect wants no builder turned away, which is what the free quote unit and the open counter are for. You want the commitment in writing before the framing hardens. If one page can carry all of that, it is ready for the track. If it cannot, better to find out here than in a referendum. Pick it apart, propose edits, and if a few of you will put your names to a final version, it goes to the Wish for Change track before the upgrade proposal lands in the back half of the year.

Full draft text

The wish

The DOT DAO adopts one standing rule for the state footprint that current JAM proposals place under its ownership:

Any allocation or release by the DOT DAO or its treasury of JAM state footprint (JAMKB, or however the DAO’s holding ends up being represented) settles in DOT. Whatever form a release takes (sale, lease, metered rental, or refundable deposit), the payment is made in DOT and any refundable part is returned in DOT. Prices may be quoted in dotUSD or any other unit.

What this leaves open

  • The release mechanism. One-time sale, fixed-term leases, a metered flow, and the decaying-deposit design from W3F Research are all compatible with the rule. It picks none of them.
  • Cadence and price. Nothing here sets how much footprint is released, when, or at what price.
  • How builders pay at the counter. Front ends and brokers stay free to accept any asset and convert to DOT at the point of payment. The rule fixes what the treasury settles in and holds, nothing upstream of that.
  • The protocol. This is sales policy for an asset the DAO would own. No Gray Paper change is involved, and whether a JAMKB token exists, and how it reaches the DAO, are untouched.
  • Third parties. The rule binds the DAO’s own releases. What holders of already-released footprint do with it is theirs to decide.

Why DOT at settlement

Coretime, the resource the network already sells, is paid in DOT. This rule has the second resource sell like the first.

Settled in DOT, every allocation and every top-up sources DOT, and everything the treasury keeps accrues in the native token, with no conversion step and no later vote. Settled in a stable unit, value reaches DOT only through a conversion policy someone has to adopt and keep running, or through a stablecoin design the DAO has not chosen yet. In the W3F mechanism thread, Jonas Gehrlein agreed that “denominating the deposit in DOT looks like more direct value capture, since each allocation and top-up would have to source DOT.”

The designers agree the unit barely affects their mechanisms. That is the reason it will not settle itself: whichever unit the first implementation ships with becomes the default. The JAM upgrade proposal is expected to reach governance in the back half of 2026. Adopted now, while the sales design is on paper, this rule costs nothing. Later it is a change to a running system.

Why this track

A standing rule about how the DAO sells what it owns is what the Wish for Change track exists for. It involves no spend and no protocol change, and OpenGov has used it for this class of decision on both networks: Kusama referendum 573 set JAM strategic direction, and Polkadot referendum 1827 adopted the first phase of the Dynamic Allocation Pool. Like any wish, a later referendum can revisit it.

Record

Deliberation so far: 17912 (distribution), 17928 (holding or metered flow), 17969 (the funders’ ask), 17971 (the W3F mechanism). This page is a draft for co-editing. Comments and co-sponsors welcome.

9

@thewhiterabbitM and team, fully agree.

Settling the rental (or any form of allocation/release) of JAM state footprint in DOT is a key factor for long-term value accrual to the ecosystem. It’s one of the strongest levers we have to create real, sustainable demand for DOT tied directly to network usage.

That said, I’m also fully supportive of keeping the builder experience as smooth as possible:

  • Quoting in USD or EUR (or dotUSD) makes perfect sense — it provides predictability and shields builders from volatility in their planning.
  • The actual settlement, however, must happen in DOT equivalents at the prevailing market price at the time of the transaction.

For builders who don’t want to hold or buy DOT upfront, they should be able to pay in accepted stablecoins (USDC, EURC, USDT, HOLLAR, etc.) or even BTC/ETH. In those cases, the builder bears the transaction costs and any slippage from the instant conversion to DOT via dedicated, pre-established liquidity pools.

This way:

  • The Treasury/DAO always receives DOT (or its net equivalent)
  • Builders get maximum flexibility
  • We don’t lose the direct demand effect on DOT

Happy to put my name behind a final version of the Wish for Change with this principle clearly stated. It strikes a strong balance between economic rigor and operational inclusivity.

10

@batbayar — happy to support this. You and @BizaRre both make good cases. And I want to thank everyone who has contributed valuable insight to this conversation.

I also want to add:

Settlement in DOT is the right rule, but it sits downstream of a bigger one. Rent-vs-sale decides whether there’s anything recurring to settle in DOT at all. The currency, the pricing curve, the reclaim rules all depend on how much footprint the DAO retains. Settle ownership and the rest follows — leave it open and every other decision stays provisional.

11

Thanks, both.

@BizaRre, you asked for the stablecoin path to be stated rather than implied, and that is fair. The counter bullet in the draft gains one sentence: “That includes stablecoins and any other asset a front end chooses to take; the builder carries the conversion cost.” No ticker lists, since naming specific assets in a referendum text dates it. Post #8 stays as published; I will repost the consolidated text once the co-sponsor list settles, so the record stays clean. As I read #9, this meets your condition, and your name goes on that version. Tell me if not.

@Kingston007, agreed that how much footprint the DAO retains is the larger decision, and RAMTIME is the fullest case for retaining it. The wish was written so it does not have to wait for that answer. It binds a one-time sale, a fixed-term lease, a metered rental and a refundable deposit alike. If the DAO retains a lot, which is the world you and I both argue for, the rule pays on every settlement from here on. If it retains little, it still makes the one sale source DOT. Nothing in it pre-judges your question, so fixing the unit now costs nothing, and it is the part that is ready while the sales design is still on paper. Rent versus sale deserves its own decision, and the perpetual holding or metered flow thread is open for exactly that.

I read your post as support in principle. Say the word and your name goes on the final text next to BizaRre’s. The invitation in #8 stays open for everyone else too.

12

@batbayar I’d definitely remove the word “sale” from every part of the wish for change text.

13

@batbayar — Yes, pls include my name on it. The clause looks good, and your point is well taken: addressing the unit now does not prejudice the retention issue. Thanks.

14

@Kingston007, done, your name goes on next to BizaRre’s. One heads-up below, since the clause you approved has since gained a reword.

@BizaRre, I sat with your strike-through for a while. I ended up keeping the word, moved to the back, and I want to lay out why before you decide whether that works for you.

The wish fixes what a release settles in; it does not say which releases should happen. If the DAO one day votes for an outright sale, over your objection and mine, that is the exact moment the rule has to bite, because a sale settled in dotUSD is the worst outcome on the table. Strike the word and the rule goes silent in the one case where silence costs the most. Keeping sales covered is insurance, and insurance against an event is no endorsement of it.

What changed instead. The wish sentence now reads: “Whatever form a release takes (lease, metered rental, refundable deposit, or, if the DAO ever chooses one, an outright sale), the payment is made in DOT and any refundable part is returned in DOT.” The leaves-open list now says plainly that whether sales should happen at all is contested among the co-sponsors and the rule takes no side. And “sales policy” is gone from the framing; it is release policy throughout.

So a sale is no longer listed as a normal item on the menu, and a sale that happens anyway still cannot escape DOT settlement. Does that version keep your name on? If the word has to go entirely, say so and we settle it among the co-sponsors before the text goes anywhere.

15

Confirmed, @batbayar, I’m happy to keep my name on. Your rewording is sound: framing the sale to settle in DOT is insurance, not endorsement.

16

@batbayar, I fully understand your reflection and completely share it. I also appreciate the proposed text adjustment.

We can move forward with this version.

My hope is that the sale of such a fundamental resource for the DOTDAO never materializes. That would truly be a red flag for me.

17

Both co-sponsors have now confirmed the final wording, so here is the consolidated text with their names on it, as I said I would once the list settled.

@Kingston007 and @BizaRre are on it. Kingston called the sale clause “insurance, not endorsement”, which is the right read: the rule binds a sale to DOT settlement without saying a sale should ever happen. BizaRre said we can move forward with this version, and was clear he hopes an outright sale never materializes. The leaves-open list now records that disagreement plainly and has the rule take no side on it.

The text is folded below to keep this short. Two things moved since the #8 draft. The counter bullet now names stablecoin and other-asset payment with the builder carrying the conversion cost. And the word sale sits at the back as a covered contingency rather than an item on the menu. Nothing else changed. The wish still fixes one thing, the unit the treasury settles in and holds, and leaves cadence, price, mechanism, and how much footprint the DAO retains to their own decisions.

The #8 invitation stays open. @thewhiterabbitM, this began as your ask, so there is a place for your name on it if you want it there, and the same goes for @usualsuspect and anyone else reading. The retention question Kingston put on the table is live in the holding or metered flow thread, and co-sponsoring this commits no one on it.

If the wording holds here, the next stop is the Wish for Change track, ahead of the JAM upgrade proposal in the back half of the year. Pick at it first if anything still reads wrong. Better here than in a referendum.

Wish for Change (consolidated text): settle DAO releases of JAM state footprint in DOT

The wish

The DOT DAO adopts one standing rule for the state footprint that current JAM proposals place under its ownership:

Any allocation or release by the DOT DAO or its treasury of JAM state footprint (JAMKB, or however the DAO’s holding ends up being represented) settles in DOT. Whatever form a release takes (lease, metered rental, refundable deposit, or, if the DAO ever chooses one, an outright sale), the payment is made in DOT and any refundable part is returned in DOT. Prices may be quoted in dotUSD or any other unit.

What this leaves open

  • The release mechanism. Fixed-term leases, a metered flow, and the decaying-deposit design from W3F Research are all compatible with the rule, and an outright sale, if the DAO ever chooses one, is bound by it too. Whether sales should happen at all is contested among the co-sponsors; the rule takes no side and picks no mechanism.
  • Cadence and price. Nothing here sets how much footprint is released, when, or at what price.
  • How builders pay at the counter. Front ends and brokers stay free to accept any asset and convert to DOT at the point of payment. That includes stablecoins and any other asset a front end chooses to take; the builder carries the conversion cost. The rule fixes what the treasury settles in and holds, nothing upstream of that.
  • The protocol. This is release policy for an asset the DAO would own. No Gray Paper change is involved, and whether a JAMKB token exists, and how it reaches the DAO, are untouched.
  • Third parties. The rule binds the DAO’s own releases. What holders of already-released footprint do with it is theirs to decide.

Why DOT at settlement

Coretime, the resource the network already sells, is paid in DOT. This rule has the second resource settle like the first.

Settled in DOT, every allocation and every top-up sources DOT, and everything the treasury keeps accrues in the native token, with no conversion step and no later vote. Settled in a stable unit, value reaches DOT only through a conversion policy someone has to adopt and keep running, or through a stablecoin design the DAO has not chosen yet. In the W3F mechanism thread, Jonas Gehrlein agreed that “denominating the deposit in DOT looks like more direct value capture, since each allocation and top-up would have to source DOT.”

The designers agree the unit barely affects their mechanisms. That is the reason it will not settle itself: whichever unit the first implementation ships with becomes the default. The JAM upgrade proposal is expected to reach governance in the back half of 2026. Adopted now, while the release design is on paper, this rule costs nothing. Later it is a change to a running system.

Why this track

A standing rule about how the DAO releases what it owns is what the Wish for Change track exists for. It involves no spend and no protocol change, and OpenGov has used it for this class of decision on both networks: Kusama referendum 573 set JAM strategic direction, and Polkadot referendum 1827 adopted the first phase of the Dynamic Allocation Pool. Like any wish, a later referendum can revisit it.

Record

Deliberation so far: 17912 (distribution), 17928 (holding or metered flow), 17969 (the funders’ ask), 17971 (the W3F mechanism). Co-sponsors: batbayar, Kingston007, BizaRre. Comments and further co-sponsors welcome.

18

@batbayar
Thanks for the invitation, and for the careful drafting. Broadly agree with the direction. Two things worth settling first.

Gifts and loans aren’t covered. Gavin listed four distribution channels: loans, leases, gifts/rewards, and sale. The wish covers lease, rental, deposit, sale, but a gift has no payment to “settle in DOT.” As written, the DAO could hand out footprint entirely through discretionary grants and stay fully compliant while the rule says nothing. Worth naming that channel explicitly, or deciding it’s left open on purpose.

The rationale promises more than the rule guarantees. It says treasury holdings “accrue in the native token.” But the rule only fixes the payment currency, not what happens after. Convert the DOT to dotUSD a block later and you’re still compliant, nothing accrues. Doesn’t weaken the core case (a buyer still has to source DOT), but the accrual line oversells it.

On the name: your call, not mine to push. This started as a question I asked, you three did the actual work. Happy to be listed if it adds something, fine if it stands on its own. Supporting it either way.

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@batbayar

Confirmed with thanks.