Does Polkadot Have Serious Quality Issues?

Tech Talk
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Polkadot is often praised for its cutting-edge technology—and to some extent, rightfully so. But recent events have significantly shaken my confidence in the project’s overall quality and execution.

Several issues have come to light that suggest not just isolated mistakes, but systemic problems in architecture, oversight, and prioritization:

  1. Performance Degradation on Polkadot and Kusama
    Recently, both Polkadot and Kusama experienced notable performance issues. Developers appeared to struggle to identify the root cause, which raises questions about the system’s complexity and maintainability. Gavin Wood himself has hinted in interviews that the architecture/code base may be overly complicated.

  2. Coretime Sales Disaster
    From the beginning, many in the community raised red flags about the coretime sales model, and from day one people jokingly talked about “block time barons.” These warnings were largely dismissed, yet recent events revealed precisely the kinds of flaws critics feared. It feels like a foreseeable disaster.

  3. Secure Bridges That Don’t Deliver
    Roughly two years ago, secure bridges were promoted as a vital step in fixing Polkadot’s liquidity bleed. Yet when users tried to bridge assets like USDT/USDC via Turtle.cool, they found that the bridged assets (e.g., Snowbridge USDT) had no utility within the Polkadot ecosystem (see also ref. 1491).
    This begs the question: were the developers unaware of this user experience gap—or worse, indifferent?

  4. Inconsistent Core Sales Data (Lastic vs RegionX)
    A marketplace should be the polished front door to your ecosystem—clear, professional, and reliable. But Lastic and RegionX show conflicting data on Kusama core sales. As of today, Lastic reports 63/94 cores sold, while RegionX shows 94/94. This kind of inconsistency undermines trust and suggests poor coordination.

I’m still (cautiously) optimistic about Polkadot’s long-term potential. But these recent events point to deeper, structural quality issues that need urgent attention. The tech may be solid, but execution, coordination, and ecosystem maturity appear to be lagging behind.

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Your concerns are valid and reflect important conversations the Polkadot community must have. While the tech foundation is strong, recent challenges - like performance issues, unclear coretime data, and underwhelming bridge utility - highlight real gaps in execution and user focus. Constructive criticism like this is essential for maturing the ecosystem. Let’s push for transparency, accountability, and sharper alignment between vision and delivery.