Make Kusama Chaotic Again

Ecosystem
42

It appears we could start to define “Kusama 2.0” by setting clear objectives, much like the emergence of community defined Polkadot 2.0:

  • Phase 1: Kusama 1.0 (Polkadot 2.0 Convergence):

    • Retain complete alignment with Polkadot 2.0 features.

  • Phase 2: Kusama 2.0 or new version naming system (Experimental Divergence):

    • Introduce a dedicated privacy layer on the Hub—and, if feasible, on XCM and DA channels.
    • Implement quantum-resistant cryptography.
    • Governance experimentation: e.g. full democratic voting, an emphasis on personhood, and provisions for hosting decentralized dark DAOs.
    • Integrate emerging Polkadot features (ELVES, Personhood, JAM, etc.).

  • Key Considerations:

    • In the future, Kusama should keep adding Polkadot features? I’d imagine too much deviation would eventually send them in different paths all together.
    • Polkadot could eventually adopt some of these divergent features (such as enhanced privacy), but that remains optional.

Ultimately, Kusama should be Polkadot in a cypherpunk utopia.

Not sure if this should be the moment to define it, but the Polkadot 2.0 concept was such a success that I feel Kusama could use this too.

2 Likes
43

I agree. Should we discuss how we could get Zcash level privacy for tokens stashes and transfers? I don’t think Polkadot will want to adopt such thing for a long time, but I feel confident they would gladly interact with Kusama when privacy is needed. Interacting with Zcash could also be an option but it doesn’t necessarily benefits our ecosystem, and it may not be as straightforward either.

44

The Polkadot Blockchain Academy (PBA) was a powerful initiative that went from concept to implementation in a short period of time. It proved to be an effective and crucial component of our ecosystem.

Now that our systems have matured, it is time to graft the PBA with the protocol. The path of a PBA alumni should be a wide-open invitation to take their new-found expertise and test it on Kusama with strong support from a committee that can forge alum into innovative, disruptive Web3 powerhouses; each scintillating into their sovereign domain of Web3 expertise.

Why privacy?
→ Bc accessibility. Privacy is one component of accessibility.

We need to create an ecosystem where there is a low barrier-to-entry to test an idea: easy to program, easy to deploy logic, and easy to test for market-fit. All within a short period of time e.g. 1 week.

Factors that will help to quickly test an idea:

  • Lowering the Kusama deposit fee by 10x
  • Solidity smart contracts on Asset Hub
  • Integrating JAM services so developers can go beyond Solidity
  • Privacy will allow developers to test an idea / a protocol without the need to become a regulatory expert
  • De-coupling Kusama from Polkadot *

Blockchain is often criticized for lacking real-world use cases, but much of its innovation is hindered by regulation. Let’s create an environment where developers are free to experiment without the sword of regulation looming over their heads.

However, privacy is not enough of a value proposition for Kusama to become disruptive. There needs to be good changes/decisions coming from the top and a means for all other changes to recursively follow its parent changes aka alignment. Prior we had Gav and Rob as powerful stewards but they both went off to work on other important tasks. Kusama is missing some one or some thing (e.g. a disruptive mission/vision, unique value proposition, and set of on-chain OKRs) that will set it on a direct course to take the Web3 world by storm. I like to think of Steve Jobs, the invention of the iPhone, then post- Steve Jobs, the company just became a series of updates, nothing truly novel/disruptive like the iPhone ever came from it again. How do we ensure that we don’t become a victim of this? In the ethos of Web3, we tend to dislike centralized leadership. Even the best leaders in Web3 are often called benevolent dictators. Fortunately, we can solve this. I wrote about how to solve for this at the end of this post. I do think that a good leader or set of leaders would make the difference and act as a proxy for governance until we have an effective governance protocol. One that has a recipe for innovation and a proper management and alignment of the whole protocol via: vision → mission → objectives → key results → KPIs → assessment → Iterate.

** De-coupling Kusama from Polkadot
Polkadot has matured. Perhaps, now, we: “Polkadot” can survive and thrive without a canary network. Perhaps now the bird can step out of its cage and fly. I always thought that if anything were to happen on Polkadot, it would happen on Kusama. We also thought of Kusama as the canary network of Polkadot. But what if it was the other way around. What if the full vision of Polkadot can only be actualized through Kusama. All-in-all, perhaps Polkadot served as a trojan horse for the masses and inside are all the Web3 values brewing in the form of a little bird in a diamond mine waiting for it to grow its wings and fly out of its cage.

Also, the product/marketing design/strategy of Polkadot as a whole commonly having two parachains e.g. Moonbeam/MoonRiver Acala/Karura, is extremely confusing for end-users. “Do I invest in Karura token? Or do I invest in Acala token?” “Wait, is Karura just a test network with economic value or an actual product?” By unleashing Kusama from Polkadot, this will simplify overall Polkadot (and Kusama) UX - Kusama and parachains will become their own thing. Teams will be required to find greater value propositions for their Kusama parachains and become more accountable for their actions on these “experimental” parachains with real economic value.

Pathway to Privacy

It never made sense to me that I cannot test Web3 ideas freely on Web3 protocols without having to think of it from a regulatory standpoint. A blockchain should stand for allegality - no ifs, ands, or buts. The only way an entity can have enforcement on the protocol should be through the protocol (write logic, deploy). Otherwise, non-Web3 entities have no jurisdiction on a blockchain. The only place a non-Web3 entity can have jurisdiction is when data leaves the reigns of a Web3 protocol (off-ramp) or is about to enter the Web3 protocol (on-ramp). Blockchain has nothing to do with governments.

If we are to embark on creating a truly disruptive privacy protocol - one that the world has not seen before. One which is truly “allegal”, we will need to create a new engineering powerhouse to drive development for the Kusama protocol. This on-chain collective of developers would be funded by the Kusama Treasury, would be accountable to the community, and would have some hierarchical nature. The development force would have to be strong enough that if Parity can no longer be associated with Kusama, then the Kusama protocol can still move forward (runtime upgrades, maintenance, bugs, enhancements) without disruption.

I do miss the old times. Most of us are creatures of habit. When the fire of novelty dies down or is nonexistent, we often rely on our habits to move in this world. I see an increase in folks applying old paradigms to Polkadot. For me, I am not looking to reinvent the existing world in the new digital world that we are creating. I am looking to create a new world that has never existed before. If anything, I would rather we divorce the old world of corporations, enterprises, and regulations completely or marry them by creating on-ramps for these entities to properly evolve into the protocols so that we can create a new world that is better, more efficient, and ultimately gives back the power to the individual to live a good life amongst their peers on this planet.

“If it’s not the laws of His Majesty then I can make my own law.”
-- Bob Marley

True Autonomous DAOs

Governance is better run by AI agents. It is possible to create an algorithm whose function is to consistently output on-chain innovation. This can be done by having an AI agent(s) manage a DAO whose mission, vision, objectives, and key results have been voted on and placed on-chain by the community. Instead of electing a new leader every four years, we vote on any changes for the DAO’s mission, vision, objectives, and key results. Projects compete for obtaining funding to deliver on the DAO’s key results. The AI agent measures the project’s outcome in various forms, including on-chain data, community sentiment, and on-chain KPI’s to determine if the project met the key result that it was funded for. Teams who deliver successfully gain credibility resorting to larger funding opportunities in the future. Each project has it’s own set of OKR’s so that it can help in creating quantifiable and qualitative ways that the AI agent can measure success of a project and also so that projects can be recursive in nature: projects can spawn off of projects.

2 Likes
45

You touch on several topics that resonate with Virto’s goals and work on Kusama. As a reminder for the community, you all helped us build the common good chain Kreivo, a hub focused on DAOs and lowering the entry barrier for entrepreneurs to easily set up their resilient business without much knowledge of Web3.

Your vision on true autonomous organizations is interesting, I envision our DAOs working similar to what you describe :slight_smile: 2025 focus for us is creating VOS(VirtoOS), an agentic operating system that can automate all aspects of managing an organization, initially it would be more of an assistant, a companion service in an org infrastructure that suggests members what actions to take(e.g. creating proposals) and providing APIs for clients, but I’d like to see said agents becoming the true autonomous boss(vos) of an organization(as JAM services) that can coordinate with other agents to achieve bigger goals.

Anyone is always welcomed to drop by the #kreivo matrix channel to share ideas on how we can shape Kusama with focus on entrepreneurs and their real world use cases. :smiley:

1 Like
46

And should we push this further and make KSM a private algorithmic stablecoin? Stablecoin in the simple meaning of a token that has a somewhat of a stable value.

I don’t think people into Kusama are in it to get rich. It’s more of a community of likeminded people wanting to build something that will make their life as well as those of fellow members, better. Sure, a rise in price can make some things better, but it’s very superficial. Bringing stability to the token could enable many positive things.

For example (and only that, not a suggestion that it is the right method), if the token price rises a bit too much over the 30 day average, the treasury could add to the sell pressure and exchange its KSM for other tokens the community values. Conversely, if the price is decreasing, the treasury could convert those other tokens back into KSM.

I’d be happy to have a token that basically simply keeps up with the “global” inflation and also be private.

If you think about it, Zcash is private but it motivates hodling, which may not be beneficial long term to keep an ecosystem growing and lively. Isn’t it literally why all major currencies are stable anyway?

Just a musing, but I’m looking forward to exciting experiments on Kusama.

47

Lovely ideia and so needed in this times, i’m kind of trying to do it here in central Portugal communities to improve people living out of this forests, sharing tools to sovereignity.
Communities = people = users = buyers

48

I could envision Kusama for non coders easy to use mirroring the tech on a more intuitive manner to do it and open for everyone to tap, for instance a experimentation playground like make.com but in Kusama case using the ecosystem protocols and web3 .
Than it could have real life use cases projects Buonties, education how to use, Art and experimental kaos, Buonties to local communities and real life Common goods projects that spread Kusama worlwide.

1 Like