Polkadot 2.0 Launch Party

I’m certainly not having a go at you or anyone else for that matter. I just saw your post and in the excitement I decided to revisit those links as they’re the ones I was most familiar with and discovered a few 404s :smile:
In terms of parachain development I used to ask Rococo-related questions in the Substrate Builders Program rooms. I’m not surprised that there aren’t many questions in those groups anymore from established parachain teams given the significant advancements in generative AI guidance, and for new teams I think it would make sense for them to be using Paseo Testnet Support #paseo-testnet-support:parity.io, which seems quite active. Although last year it seemed easier to get Kusama and Polkadot parachains and associated cores than it was to get a parachain to test Paseo (formerly Rococo), hence why I never adopted using Paseo.
But I do seriously think there is an opportunity to create a mind map visualisation of all these different live communication channels that directs new and legacy users to where the latest action is. Perhaps even having a health check shown in those visualisations, with metrics shown from red to green that highlight their liveness (amount of messages per day) and moderation (limited amount of spam).

I’ll give an example from the Ambassador Program for context. There’s currently an unofficial Ambassadors Open Forum in Telegram at Telegram: View @ambxpert that says its “A chat for ambassadors and non ambassadors to talk about ambassadors :wink:” and has two admins, one of which has been in official Ambassador Fellowship roles lately, and they both juggle multiple commitments. That channel has been full of spam messages since about 25th May 2025. If there was a mind map visualisation of live communications across the Ambassador Program then that group would be labelled red for moderation, a red for liveness (there aren’t many messages, and they’re drowned amongst all the spam messages), and red for redirection (there isn’t any information directing users to official groups that would be labelled in green).
I think we need to establish governance standards and moderator accountability to address these gaps, both for unmoderated unofficial groups that are where users may be onboarded, just as much as we address unmoderated official groups, which is where we actually want them to be redirected to since there’s a higher chance of those unofficial groups being abandoned.
If moderators don’t uphold those governance standards and properly moderate the groups then they should be held to account and be formally requested to restore dedicating time to it or to step back from official roles in the ecosystem to focus on fixing their unofficial priorities with a clear deadline for compliance, and if after the warning period the matter is still unresolved, then remove them from official capacity in the Ambassador Fellowship.

Parachain Developer Re-engagement

In my previous response to this section I provided some feedback as a Parachain developer here.

However, I forgot to respond about to your question “Currently, there are 40 parachains running on Polkadot. How many of them have actually looked into or are considering upgrading to access 2.0 features like Async backing and Elastic Scaling?”.
At least 10% of them “have actually looked into or are considering upgrading to access 2.0 features like Async backing and Elastic Scaling”.

Of course! I’d be delighted for us to connect.

By the way @radha and @alice_und_bob, we’ve already published our announcement about Astar’s upcoming switch to Agile Coretime :smiling_face_with_sunglasses::handshake:t4:.

1 Like

Hello Rad, as a Web3 developer hub, Space4Build is ready to participate and provide support in the technical sessions. With a strong presence in Latin America and some European connections, we can help spread the word about Polkadot 2.0 even further.

We believe it might also be interesting to include development teams from companies exploring the technology in the audience. These have been the main venues supporting workshops in this region and will surely add valuable experience.

We’re here, ready and prepared.

We are now starting to seed the Telegram groups for the Hackathon and for Comms around the launch party.

If your team wants to be a part of the hackathon or co-marketing efforts, please reach out via TG @alice_und_bob

Hi @alice_und_bob @radha

This is Gaius_sama, leading initiatives related to Astar Network.

As my colleague @Juminstock mentioned, Astar has always closely followed Polkadot’s evolution. We’ve already upgraded to Async Backing and are currently migrating to the Agile Coretime model. Naturally, we’re very interested in joining and supporting initiatives like the Polkadot 2.0 Launch Party, contributing our resources, network, and experience as parachain developers.

We can also leverage our extensive network across Ethereum and the Superchain (Soneium) to help spread the word about the hackathon and bring in developers from outside of Polkadot, giving them a fresh look at Polkadot’s new tech stack and the opportunities our ecosystem offers.

This is also a great opportunity to see new initiatives emerge while incorporating the voices and involvement of parachains. Polkadot may be the heart of the ecosystem, but parachains are the body parts that bring real use cases and adoption.

That said, and with our interest clear, I have two questions:

:one: What is your expected timeline for the Launch Party?
As you probably know, involving multiple partners and initiatives can complicate coordination. The earlier we understand the timeline, the better we can prepare, and the more meaningfully we can contribute.

:two: How can we best contribute?
What role do you envision for parachains like us, and what support or input would help make the Launch Party a success?

I’d love to join the Telegram group or hop on an ecosystem call to discuss further and start aligning on coordination.

Feel free to reach me anytime on Telegram: @Gaius_sama

Thanks,


Gaius_sama
Astar Core Team

We have some exciting updates to share with the community! During the last few weeks, we worked on strategizing the hackathon execution and here are the latest developments:

  • Online Hackathon dates - Sep 15th - Oct 27th (6 weeks)
  • Hosted on https://devpost.com/ (will be listed next week)
  • $15,000 in prize pool for three hackathon tracks. W3F is happy to add additional tracks through funding matching, if any ecosystem teams/parachains are interested.

The objective of this hackathon is to educate/bring awareness to Polkadot’s USPs (Unique Selling Points), where developers and tinkerers gather together online or in person (thanks to the proposed collaboration with Polkadot’s roots and meetups initiative).

Hence, throughout the six weeks of this hackathon, numerous talks, workshops, demos, and tutorial sessions will take place at regular intervals to cater to different developer audiences.

There are already teams confirming their engagement: W3F, Parity Technologies, Papermoon, OpenGuild, DevCult, Unique Network, Astar Network, and the list is growing. This is a community-driven event; every ecosystem team is welcome to join the efforts!

Staying true to the Polkadot 2.0 theme, we crafted these three hackathon tracks:

  1. Parachains
  2. Polkadot SDK
  3. Polkadot Tinkerers

Parachains Track ($5K)

Everything and anything related to Parachain SDKs and APIs. Polkadot is the home for custom blockchains, focusing on numerous Web3 use cases across different verticals—DeFi, Identity, Gaming, Social Media, Entertainment, DAOs, etc. Pick a favorite parachain of your choice, use their SDK or API to create compelling Proof of Concepts, and bring light to the hidden gems within the Polkadot ecosystem.

As a part of this track, we invite all the parachain teams within the ecosystem to speak about the following topics in a dedicated recorded online session:

  • Their objective and use-case/s they are trying to cater to
  • Their SDKs, APIs, Demos, Docs and Tutorials
  • What features of Polkadot SDK do they use (and plan to use or never want to use)
  • Who they would like to collaborate with in the ecosystem

Polkadot SDK Track ($5K)

This track focuses on the Polkadot Cloud narrative and is designed to attract non-native developers to the Polkadot ecosystem. When a random developer from the likes of Google or Microsoft hears about Blockchains, they think of Smart Contracts. Polkadot offers more than just a smart contract execution environment with gas limits. It provides a framework to create feeless and tokenless chains with prepaid execution (and an upgrade path to continously running Web3 services through JAM). Now is the time to bring awareness as Web3 is garnering attention and developers are thinking beyond the tokens. Hence, the focus will be letting the hackers:

  • Try out launching Polkadot rollups through https://www.deploypolkadot.xyz/ or https://onpop.io/ and get a sense of how easy it is to launch customizable blockchains
  • Build custom runtimes for use-cases they care about (Extensive tutorials and educational content will be provided)

Talks from experts and core developers of Polkadot SDK from Parity Technologies will inspire the participants about what constitutes the Web3 Cloud powered by Polkadot.

Polkadot Tinkerers Track ($5K)

The field is wide open for this track. Work on unstoppable apps, cross-chain apps, data crunching and visualizations, UX improving solitions, vibe-coded PoCs showcasing Polkadot features etc.

We encourage Polkadot Meetups/Roots participants/tinkerers to submit their work to this track.

Web3 Foundation is considering opening up this hackathon to community teams as well. To encourage engagement, we will do a funding matching up to $2.5K. So if any parachain or ecosystem team wants to host a dedicated track under the Polkadot 2.0 hackathon umbrella and wants to piggyback on the marketing and momentum around this event, now is your chance! We are very excited for this community-driven event!

16 Likes

Hi, can I put https://www.npmjs.com/package/create-dot-app somewhere? It might be useful for hackathon participants.

2 Likes

Absolutely @0xPresc. There will be hacker resources page where this can be showcased. We are also planning to invite projects like yours to create a short video or even give a talk/workshop session. Would that be of interest to you?

On a different note, we are working on increasing the prizepool. Will post here shortly.

3 Likes

@radha Ideal Network would love to be included in this as well! How can we get more involved?

1 Like

Thanks! A short video could work, but I won’t be able to do a talk/workshop at this time.

1 Like

If we’re not too late to the party, OnFinality would love to help support this event :smiley:

We can provide infrastructure, e.g. RPCs and Indexers , to teams doing the hackathon and a prize of Onfinality credit to the winners

Let me know!

3 Likes

Noted! This is the kind of energy we need to make this event successful! Thank you @Daniel_OnFinality

2 Likes

Hey all,

we are starting to roll out campaign information in this thread: Polkadot Build Party - Global Hackathon starts 6th October 2025!

I will also reach out to everyone who indicated interest to co-host the event!

4 Likes