ParityTech update for September 2024

Ecosystem
1

Hello,

here are belated September updates.

Pierre

Data

  • Public Dashboards - Release of the new website based on DotLake - https://data.parity.io
    • Major improvements in the backend and UI
    • Real-time, daily and monthly metrics for Polkadot & parachains
    • Allows for quicker future releases of new features and charts
    • Already incorporating first batch of community feedback
    • V2 is also in progress with additional data apps
  • Data Availability - Token Terminal Integration project:
    • Successfully concluded verification of Acceptance Criteria allowing us to move towards the Maintenance phase
    • Prioritization of next batch of parachains to be onboarded
    • Focus moving from infra to deeper metrics understanding, definition and joint Comms Strategy backed with data

Business support

  • Completion of Ecosystem support for Async backing (restrospective
    • 6+ parachain teams now supported,
  • Supported multiples firms (Xcaveat,EnergyWeb,…) to leave Rococo and move their testing environment to Paseo
    • Coordinated content with Ecosystem teams [Region X labs & Lastic] to produce introductory tutorials on purchasing coretime.
  • With help from Remy, the Papermoon initiative is now in full swing. With weekly syncs between Papermoon <> Parity <> W3F, and now Accelerate Polkadot, all working towards the Technical Documentation Initiative.
    • Docs from the Polkadot Wiki and docs.substrate.io are currently in the process of being migrated into the repo.
    • A new repo was set up https://github.com/polkadot-developers which will be the 1 source of truth for all Polkadot Developer Documentation.
      • Points of Contact have been established for each party.
      • Any changes to the Polkadot-SDK will be immediately raised in the new repo with the help of GHActions
      • A bot, created by Papermoons Luca is also up and running, ensuring we have a standardization for PR’s and edits to the documentation.
    • A new Developer Hub that will host the documentation outside of the repo is now in progress, we hope to share more with the community in the coming weeks.
  • Remy & Cisco have volunteered to become the executors for the UI / UX Bounty Issue “Unified Gas Fee Token” where the goal is to establish DOT as a unified gas fee token throughout the Ecosystem.

Product / Runtime Updates

  • Polkadot successfully upgraded to switch to Agile Coretime. A beta dashboard is also available in Polkadot JS Apps.
  • The team put together concrete plans for the migration of Relay Chain functionality to Asset Hub. An intro doc was shared with many of the top partners (exchanges, wallets, etc.) to ensure support throughout the migration.
  • The Polkadot v1.3.0 upgrade included an upgrade to the Polkadot<>Kusama bridge that lowered fees by a factor of 25.
  • Similarly, an update was merged to Snowbridge that will have a similar effect in the next upgrade.
  • Fork aware transaction pool made good progress, a fresh round of reviews happened, and a merge will happen soon #4639. Transaction testing tool is getting more features on the side too.
  • Elastic Scaling: RFC 103 approved/merged, and new candidate receipt primitives merged. Node side work began with a PR that enables use of new primitives (#5679). Another PR removing TTL is in draft with core logic implemented (#5461).

Developer experience

  • Documentation
  • Testing
    • The Zombienet team was working in improving the dx and integration with tools build around the new sdk with the R0uge and OpenZeppelin teams. Also, we created the first PoC for Doppelganger (only forking the relaychain at moment ) and continue to pushing the usage of the sdk in our CI.
  • Node
    • Improvements to chain-spec-builder have been pushed out to improve the tool’s usability for parachain teams. #4889
    • litep2p performance has been improved again by quite a bit (comment, forum post)
    • Improvement of the usability of collators in RPC mode. These nodes now have a proper retry logic (#5515) and will soon expose more metrics (#5572).

Infrastructure deployments

  • Finalized Coretime Parachain deployment
  • Mythos (Polkadot mythical) chain migration
  • Roll out of polkadot-sdk:stable2409-rc1, rewrote scripts to support the new versioning patterns.
  • Burned-in PVF execution prioritization in Kusama
  • Deployed https://data.parity.io WebApp

Releases

  • Release Registry set up and operational. Dates for stable2412 and stable2503 are planned.
  • Release stable2409 will be the first one where we did a Quality Assurance period on its draft.
  • Set up the backport bot that already opened a total of 18 pull requests to make devs’ lives easier.
  • Introduce prdoc bot for automatic prdoc generation

Bug fixes

Security

Code Audit

  • 5 PR audits were completed in September (4SRLabs, 1 Parity team)
  • Cyborg was audited as part of the Alpha Program

Security Disclosure

  • 1 security disclosure was made in September.
  • 26 disclosures made to Parachains during 2024 so far. They are being migrated to the Security Hub to facilitate access and interactions.

Security Bug Bounty

  • 1 Bug Bounty submission was made in September and is currently under review

Security Hub
The Security Hub continues to be refined. First documents are being uploaded feel free to submit your inputs !

Security/Stability

  • Extended the whois tool in polkadot-introspector. It now allows converting and querying information about validators using interchangeable unique identifiers, (#794)
  • Validator disabling/slashing: Continuing functional testing and refactoring around disabling decisions to make them more generic and disabling strategy agnostic. There’s also a PR in draft for the re-enablement of validators (#5724).

Announcements

  • ROCOCO will be sunset on the 14th October 2024
11 Likes
2

Hi Pierre,

Parity plays a big role in setting the direction of the ecosystem and moves very fast in many different directions. The monthly updates have always been very useful for R0GUE to get a glimpse of what Parity is working on. Would it be possible to bring back those monthly updates?

Thanks in advance.

Daan | R0GUE

1 Like
3

I believe that the lack of communication around Polkadot Hub resulted into this forum post thread .

4

yes it is possible. We need to think about what kind of updates would be useful to people. I had the feeling that the previous long list was not the most efficient.

what would be useful to you?

5

Hi Pierre,

Thanks for reaching out and for your openness to feedback. I’ve noticed two threads closely connected, so I’ll consolidate my thoughts here.

Regarding regular updates, personally the request for more frequent updates stem mostly from the lack of communication around Polkadot Hub. I can understand that the process of assembling all this information is more effort than the amount of value it gives to the wider ecosystem, but it did create a place for people to see what Parity was working on, ask questions and provide feedback. E.g. monthly updates could have raised questions around Polkadot Hub (e.g. strategy), or resulted into feedback for a given release (e.g. 2412) – the examples I give stem from where I could have gained and provided valuable information. Whether this should be solved using a general update format like you did previously or specific updates around releases or Polkadot Hub, I’m not sure. Happy to help and give feedback.

Improving communication around Polkadot Hub specifically is essential not only to foster community engagement and feedback, but it is critical when competing with top industry chains. Apart from superior developer experiences, cutting-edge features, and high throughput, articulating a compelling, coherent vision and strategy is fundamental to attracting and retaining developers and integrators. Currently, this clarity is lacking, which limits engagement and feedback from the community.

How we can improve this communication:

  • Clearly articulate a distinct vision for Polkadot Hub beyond being just another EVM chain with governance, tokens and nfts. Whether this is the Polkadot Cloud with XCM or another strategic direction, this vision needs to be transparently communicated.
  • Establish dedicated, interactive support channels (e.g. Discord) for builders and integrators to easily seek assistance, offer feedback, and share insights.
  • Ensure customer-centric approaches where developers’ and users’ feedback actively shape the ongoing development and improvement of Polkadot Hub.

Polkadot Hub, being governed by OpenGov, inherently involves complexity but also significant strength. It aligns diverse expertise—from protocol developers to marketers—ensuring a robust and participatory ecosystem. To fully leverage this, we must create spaces that facilitate dialogue, align stakeholders, and reward contributions effectively.

In summary, clearer and more proactive communication can significantly improve how we build and evolve Polkadot Hub—eliminating uncertainty, reducing duplication of efforts across the ecosystem, and channeling collective energy toward shared goals. Adopting a more engaged, responsive, and community-driven approach should be the objective as it reflects Polkadot’s decentralised ethos.

Thanks again for your willingness to listen. Please feel free to reach out anytime.

Daan | R0GUE

5 Likes