numbers this bad should have sparked a reset months ago.
the marketing bounty reports keep coming out, but its the same ol’ story. months of big spending, vague updates, and no clear proof of growth. before another top up hits the treasury, it’s worth looking at what the data actually says.
based on the september 2025 financial report:
- nova wallet x blast premier campaign: ~1.5m usd
- kaito / kol influencer campaign: ~1.1m usd
- the kus weekly recaps on friday: ~500k usd
- curator and management salaries: ~470k usd
- measurable roi, tracked performance: under 75k usd
language over substance
the latest marketing bounty report reads like a pr recap with lots of verbs and no numbers. it’s full of “coordinated,” “facilitated,” and “aligned,” but never mentions users, signups, or measurable outcomes. there isn’t a single kpi listed. no cost per click, cost per user, retention, or engagement metrics. everything is qualitative and internal facing.
redundant partnerships
many of the “key achievements” repeat the same names we’ve seen for months… nova wallet, blast, serotonin, coinmarketcap, etc.. implying the same partners are being recycled under new campaign names. this looks like circular activity, paying the same groups repeatedly for lackluster results instead of focusing on new growth channels.
events and proposals ≠ outcomes
most of the deliverables are about attending events, coordinating booths, reviewing proposals, and facilitating discussions. those are operational tasks, not marketing roi. if the MB’s main deliverables are “coordination” and “oversight,” then why is it framed as a marketing body rather than a PMO or operations bounty?
blast 2026 extension
really? extending the blast partnership again, despite both ethical and performance concerns, suggests no lessons were learned. the last campaign already produced short spikes and poor retention, so doubling down without data justifying such a high cost partnership feels wrong. how many millions must be wasted for this to be stopped?
coinmarketcap partnership
finalizing a coinmarketcap partnership is presented as a big win, but every chain already has one. it’s baseline hygiene, not innovation. without traffic attribution or funnel data, this is just marketing theater.
looking past the latest monthly report, we see a similar story..
nova wallet x blast (~1.5m usd)
this campaign reportedly onboarded around 20,000 wallets, most of which went inactive soon after. even if they were sticky users (they definitely aren’t), this would still be a bad deal for polkadot in terms of roi. the bounty report even notes that “post event retention remains under review.”
the graphics shared showing its results are also misleading, see below (I hear this was created by Crane, maybe he can confirm):
blast itself has a questionable history, including its controversial neom partnership on land taken from the huwaiti tribe (source) and later legal issues in cs2 tournaments (source). even worse, this was a one sided deal that mainly benefited nova wallet, not polkadot. nova has already raised many millions through opengov this year, so why is the MB also footing the bill for marketing this private company? this partnership solves no real problem and is near-sighted at best.
kaito / kol campaign (~1.1m usd)
pitched as a major visibility push, it now stands as a costly failed experiment. engagement was inflated and traffic didn’t translate into real usage or on-chain activity. metrics looked good in the moment but faded quickly, leaving no measurable lift across wallets, staking, or developer participation. most people agree it was botted traffic, which makes sense given how low human activity is lately across the board once the campaign ended.
the kus (~500k+ usd)
ya you read that correctly. half a million dollars for just one of jay’s many shows, the friday recap. and it doesn’t stop there. he’s already raised another 250k+ for other treasury-funded media projects, bringing his total take to around three quarters of a million dollars plus whatever he has already raised via OG in the past.
apparently the videos pull in thousands of impressions per episode, yet only around twenty people watch live when I check… so the numbers don’t compute. where are all the real users at? the comments? the community discussion? the kus discord has been shrinking for months, not growing. the comment to impression ratio on youtube tells the real story. it’s either botted traffic or we’re paying for low quality impressions from audiences with zero interest in polkadot. pick your poison. engagement isn’t just low, it’s almost nonexistent. countless videos from other creators with one tenth the views often have ten times as many comments.
the reality is after all that funding The Kus has received, any serious media company would have built real revenue streams like sponsors, ads, or paid subscribers, but that does not appear to be happening, just a steady stream of treasury money. are more asks incoming shortly? when will it end?
we’re not marketing to the masses here. we’re basically paying premiums to entertain the polkadot echo chamber.
crane (gm role, ~195k for 13 mo. of work)
the general manager role was meant to bring structure and accountability, but there’s still no public reporting of roi, retention, or attribution. crane’s agency, nospec, has no visible presence, website, or client portfolio. is it even real? it was apparently co-founded with don diego sanchez, both chaosdao members known for using private dao channels to talk down on other builders. if there’s real marketing experience here, it hasn’t shown up in the results.
how we move forward
the truth is, we probably shouldn’t expect much to change. the way opengov works right now, it naturally protects the status quo. many dvs are financially or politically aligned with the same ecosystem players who benefit from keeping things exactly as they are. without parity or the web3 foundation stepping in, the marketing bounty will likely keep burning funds until the next refill.
that said, fixing it isn’t complicated and it shouldn’t even be controversial. start by removing crane immediately for breaking the agreed upon standards for Ethics / Transparency / Reporting provided in the approved marketing bounty 2.0 ref here. he failed to live up to #1, 5, 6, and 7.
then pause all marketing bounty spending for six months. the simple truth is there’s nothing meaningful to promote right now. wait until new products begin shipping biweekly under parity’s product-first roadmap, and then use marketing to amplify real solutions to real problems.