This report provides an overview of the current funding runways of active bounties within Polkadot OpenGov as of October 2025. It follows up on the Bounty Compliance Audit published in September and aims to map out when each bounty could be expected to submit its next top-up request.
The purpose of this research is to support more strategic and predictable treasury management across OpenGov departments. By analyzing remaining balances, last funding dates, and declared runways, we aim to identify trends in spending behavior and better anticipate future funding periods. This work also serves as a step towards establishing budgeting practices.
This research was funded as part of a Web3 Foundation Grant to OpenGov.Watch.
Methodology
All data was manually collected from on-chain referenda, bounty homepages, and direct curator input.
We used three steps for data collection. First, we reviewed either the initial proposal or the most recent top-up proposal for each bounty. These are expected to include a budget plan under the bounty compliance standards approved by OpenGov in Referendum #1254. However, nearly half of the bounties lacked this information.
When data was not available on the relevant referendum, we checked the bounty homepages where possible. Finally, we contacted bounty curators directly to provide the information.
Results
We are glad to report that we collected all the required information. In several cases, this was only possible after multiple rounds of follow-ups. It is clear that bounties missing public information are also harder to access and communicate with, even for us, despite being well-connected in the ecosystem. Some of the data we obtained heavily relied on our private network and would likely be inaccessible to regular voters.
Main Table
The main table includes:
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Whether the bounty is active or not
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Remaining DOT in the bounty’s sub-treasury (including approved proposals)
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The date of the last funding or curator assignment
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Last funding amount in DOT
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Proposed or reported months remaining
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Expected month of next submission
You can view the full table on Google Sheets here.
Key Observations
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Most active bounties are expected to request new funding between December 2025 and March 2026, suggesting a concentrated budget window in Q1 2026.
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Reported runways sometimes differ from actual spend rates. Some bounties forecast short runways despite having enough reserves for a longer time period. These will be more visible with the upcoming treasury report.
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Most dates should roughly match future proposals, but differences are likely due to DOT price changes, delayed spending, or simply poor planning.
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Inactive or defunded bounties remain on-chain without clear closure proposals, slightly inflating the total number of existing departments.
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Roughly a quarter of active bounties still lack publicly available or easily accessible funding data, pointing to the need for better transparency and compliance.
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Stablecoin based funding will make it easier to align proposed timelines with actual spending in future audits.
Next Up
After completing the Q3 Treasury Report, we will have additional quantitative data on median spending and remaining balances for each bounty. This will allow us to test the qualitative information presented here against real spending data.
As shown in the table, the timelines are already clustered by month. With the upcoming ability for bounties to request funding in stablecoins, we can push this model further and potentially introduce cohort-based funding to standardize budget seasons and encourage specific bounties to submit proposals in pre-designated time periods.
Notes
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The data was collected between 7 - 24 October.
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The “months remaining” field should not be considered as a recommendation for proposal timing. It is an abstraction meant to support more strategic and coordinated planning.
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In some cases, there were up to three months between curator approval and bounty approval. As a rule, we used the later date, since funds cannot be spent without curators.
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It was reported to us that the Bridge Security Bounty pays only when bugs are found, and since spending is not fixed, there is no concept of runway.
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For Fast Grants, the “proposed months” value is a placeholder. The bounty prioritizes deliverables from already approved teams, and some funds return when teams do not deliver. They are operating within the current allocation.
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Polkadot Assurance Legion and DeFi Infrastructure plan by time ranges, for example, 12 to 18 months, rather than exact dates. For these, we assigned tentative “next submission expected” dates. These are far out and most likely to change.
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The Marketing Bounty receives funds on a monthly schedule. We consolidated the amounts in the table to present a consistent view.
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Public RPC and DeFi Infrastructure have not yet received their latest approved budgets. The figures shown reflect balances after adding those upcoming payouts.
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It was reported to us that the Games Bounty and the Polkadot Pioneers Prize are processing outstanding payouts and are in the process of closure.
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If you are a curator and believe any item needs correction or an update, please contact us.
