Over the last year, the R0GUE team has been building Pop Network to make Polkadot’s powerful infrastructure accessible through ink! smart contracts. However, after continued evaluation of Polkadot’s developer market, the shifting direction around Polkadot Hub, Pallet Revive, and the challenges of supporting a standalone parachain (especially amidst delays to Pallet Revive) we’ve made the strategic decision to deprioritise Pop Network.
Pop Network will not be deployed to mainnet. All technical milestones from the proposal were successfully completed, with the exception of audits, Subscan integration, deployment on Polkadot, and bulk coretime. As a result, 31,321 DOT will be returned to the Treasury. Full details are provided in the “Funds to be Returned” section of the report linked below.
Rather than maintaining our own chain, we believe our work will deliver greater impact by focusing on Polkadot Hub and contributing directly to the developer experience on Polkadot. This includes ongoing discussions with Parity to integrate key innovations like Pop’s Messaging into Polkadot Hub, ensuring our work lives on in a way that benefits the entire ecosystem.
We remain fully committed to the Polkadot ecosystem and will focus our efforts on the Pop CLI, the ink! Alliance, Paseo, and the Polkadot Hub, where we can continue delivering long-term value for developers and the ecosystem.
Thanks in advance.
With kind regards,
R0GUE
PS: DOT return scheduled for next week to leave room for comments.
Final Report: Final Pop Network Progress Report - Google Docs