1. Introduction
This document presents a strategy outline on how we (a decentralized network of agents) can better coordinate to grow the ecosystem.
Why? The broader Polkadot eco has not had a shared strategy so far. OpenGov has no common path to align on. Agents lack coordination. Everything is patchwork, which is very inefficient compared to centralized ecosystems.
This strategy aligns our efforts by setting out one common mission for the Polkadot ecosystem:
Polkadot is the best place to build Web3!
This builder-first strategy proposes six programs to make Polkadot significantly more attractive for builders and make the existing builders in the ecosystem more successful.
How you can contribute
This is a first version draft. It is an exploration to see if people gather behind this mission and if we can achieve a critical mass to have an impact.
We need your honest criticism of the general direction, the mission statement, the programs, and the implementation plan outlined below.
Specifically, the following points need feedback:
- Who should we recruit for the program manager roles?
- What budget should we assign to those programs?
- What timelines should we give ourselves?
If you want to be part of making this strategy happen, please comment below with how you can contribute!
Yes, this draft has many imperfections. It was released early to optimize for speed and gathering feedback. If you spot things that are bad, please just point them out and we will get them fixed.
2. Mission
Our vision: Make Web3 a reality
Our mission: Make Polkadot the best place to build Web3!
Polkadot is the ecosystem most closely aligned with Web3 values. Polkadot should also become the eco where you get sent by everyone when you want to build Web3 products.
Building on Polkadot has to be easy, powerful, fast, and fun. The more we achieve this, the easier it will be to convince people to build on Polkadot. The more people we get to build on Polkadot, the closer we get to critical mass.
3. Strategy
Programs
To achieve our goal of creating the best place to build Web3, we launch 6 programs. Each program is led by a program manager and has a budget attached. They operate in public! (but donāt have to share all details non-disclosure is helpful)
- Builders - āDevelopers, Developers, Developersā
- Objective: Grow the number of builders using Polkadot tech
- Why? Best bet to see Web3 adoption
- How? Improve developer journey, facilitate creation of new products
- Mindshare
- Objective: Grow mindshare across all target groups
- Why? Increase surface area top of funnel
- How? Coordinating outreach, targeted strategies for main target groups
- Relationships - āBuilding Bridges for Trojan Horsesā
- Objective: Build relationships with Web2, Substrate chains, other ecos, out-of-eco protocols
- Why? Increase our relevance, create more high-value opportunities
- How? building targeted relationships
- Success - āVerticles like Tentaclesā
- Objective: Help projects in our eco succeed
- Why? Validates our eco
- How? Actively support existing verticals/products to get their issues resolved and find adoption
- Economy - āMy first on-chain billyā
- Objective: Grow our on-chain economy
- Why? develop domestic on-chain capital base
- How? Strategically support creation and integration of value-additive DeFi products, support with OpenGov-owned liquidity and incentives
- Services
- Objective: Develop our ecosystem services to provide projects with the support they need
- Why? Provide builders with the support they need
- How? Develop existing services, introduce new ones like HR, Success
Implementation
- Form coalition of agents to get broad support for strat
- Harden support for the coalition
- Agents Summit
- Whale support
- WFC approved
- set up programs
- recruit qualified leader for each initiative
- dedicate budgets
- New Collective: Ecosystem Development Agency: small initial team, further develops strategy, coordinates programs, provisions resources
4. Programs
Letās look at the individual programs.
4.1. Builders - Developers, Developers, Developers
Our flagship program is focused on improving the overall builder journey.
To make sure our tech is actually adopted, we need to get it into as many hands as possible. The more builders we have, the more apps we get, the denser the network is, the more composability we have. Developing must become: easy, powerful, fast, and fun.
The program managerās job is to ensure the resources outlined below are made available to builders, to identify current issues, and to work with all relevant eco teams to solve them.
We consider 3 target groups:
- Tinkerers: Independent developers or small teams and Web3 native protocols. Very independent. Mostly supported through docs, tools, community
- Small and Medium (Web2) Businesses: Onboarded through regional dev shops
- Enterprises: Onboarded through our global BD infra
Tinkerers
Self-service mindset. We need to provide high-quality resources so that they can help themselves:
- Docs: Tutorials, HowTos, Discussion, Reference
- Dev Tooling
- Communities
- Chaotic Kusama
Small and Medium (Web2) Businesses
Long-term likely the biggest target group for Web3 businesses. Might or might not have the capacity to build themselves. Good chance of brand loyalty once they commit. The services/resources they consume are similar to the Enterprises listed below but in smaller quantities. If they canāt build on their own, regional dev shops might be their best choice.
Enterprises
Need a dedicated key account, dedicated ecosystem services, long cycle times. Might want to run solochains/non-public ledgers, but willing to spend $ for services.
- In the sales phase, they have a dedicated BD person to talk to
- Once they start building, they have two dedicated people
- Success, to cover the whole business side
- DevRel, to cover all technical matters
Auxiliary Services
There is a range of ecosystem services that work closely to support the processes mentioned above:
- Acceleration: Work with high-potential tinkerers, SMBs
- DevRel: moderate communities, work with teams of any size, push issues to where they can be solved
- DX: solve developer experience issues
- UX: solve UX issues
- Legal: legal consultation for tinkerers and SMBs
- Auditing: various security services through PAL, vCISO
- Marketing: co-marketing/promotion, conference coordination etc.
- Resources: Funding (Grants, Investment), Talent, on-chain TVL, User pool, institutional knowledge
Actions
- Create coordination layer between teams to align efforts with strategy
- Streamline builder journey through onboarding, acceleration, success stages
- Create Cloud Services Map to show what we have
- Develop showcase applications and chains that work as proof-of-concept for prospective builders
- Productize our stack of Web3 Cloud primitives: DA, RaaS, app deployment
- Measure active developers across different core Polkadot technologies (Substrate chains, tools, indexers)
Indicators of Success
- active developers trending up
- rate of new chains and apps launching up
- active Hub ecosystem
- 1 Killer App from the eco
4.2. Mindshare - Win Mindshare
This program is focused on growing our mindshare across all relevant target groups.
To get builders into the eco, we need to let as many as possible know that Polkadot is the best place to build Web3.
The program manager is responsible for developing the strategies for the different target groups and implementing them.
Details on this program in Appendix 4.
Actions
- develop strategies for defined target groups with touch points, materials, campaigns
- assign one owner for each target group to implement strategy, provide feedback & fine-tune
- Leverage our upcoming media milestones and target regions
- Specifically start targeting Web2 space
Indicators of Success
- brand attribution reflected back (āThey have the best Web3 dev stackā)
- media mentions, social KPIs up
- invitations to represent (for free) up
- overall KPIs up in correlated manner
Associated Teams
- Content Production
- The Kusamarian
- Wagmedia
- Marketing
- Marketing Bounty
- Distractive
- Social Media Editorial Board
- Representation
- Ambassador Program
- Events Bounty
- Meetups Bounty
- Business
- Parity Sales
- BD teams (PoKe, Velocity)
- IR teams (Scytale, HIC)
4.3. Relationships - Building Bridges for Trojan Horses
This program is about building social bridges. (become more aggressive in winning over the good guys)
Relationships program manager works closely with mindshare program manager to identify high-potential opportunities and build closer relationships with them.
Substrate ecosystem
Many chains build on Substrate but not Polkadot. This is our extended area of influence! Substrate is our culture export.
- We have to draw them closer to us to make sure they stay on Substrate and spread it to their peers
- Support them with tooling
- develop dedicated communities
- explicitly invite to Sub0
- build business directory of Substrate services
- Benefits: Strengthens the adoption of Polkadot tech: Indexers, Wallets, dev shops, job opportunities for Substrate devs, increases mindshare for Substrate/XCM/Polkadot
- Substrate solochains might become convinced to join Polkadot in the future
- Push Hyperbridge to give solochains exposure to the Polkadot eco, USDT, USDC, ETH, BTC, etc
L1/L2/Rollup ecosystems
Many projects in other places of Web3 would fare better on Polkadot. Smaller restaking and rollup ecos might fail and we should pick spoils.
- develop adapters to bring their chains under the Polkadot security umbrella (Cosmos, OP Stack, Avalanche, Restaking)
- Explicitly invite to Web3 Summit
- Organize crossover conferences
- Observe their ecos for weaknesses
Existing protocols and teams
- Successful protocols go cross-chain. They should be invited to have good Polkadot presence (driven by Velocity-Nico)
- Existing DeFi protocols with strong fundamentals or strong teams that are struggling might be convinced to build on or move to Polkadot. Offer them an exit to Polkadot with good support and Cypherpunk values-driven peers
- Explicitly invite to Web3 Summit
Indicators of Success
- projects start moving to Polkadot
4.4. Success - Verticals like Tentacles
This program is about making sure our existing verticals and apps succeed.
We need to specifically double down on our champions and see they become acknowledged as best-in-class examples in the industry.
Success Program Manager works with projects to make sure they get supported as much and reasonably as possible.
Our verticals:
- Interop, Bridging, Co-Processing, DA, Intents
- DeFi, RWA, FinTech
- Gaming & Entertainment
- DePin, Data, Oracles, AI
- Social & Identity
- GovTech
Actions
- Set up a success team that works with builders, and resolves their issues with other services in the eco
- Work with ecosystem services to resolve issues
- Specifically highlight Champions in Polkadot promotion, leverage to attract new builders
- Use 5m DOT for strategic investments into (new) ecosystem projects, calling via RFP process
Grow technical bridging/co-processor angles
- Champions: Hyperbridge
- Support Hyperbridge to connect Polkadot to most relevant chains
- Consider enshrinement of Hyperbridge
- build intent settlement infrastructure on Polkadot (Polkadot as the Hong Kong of Web3)
- push DOT to other ecos (if reasonable) as intent settlement token
- ādeploy your smart contractā / āchainā and it acts as L2 for Ethereum
DeFi
- Champions: Hydration, Bifrost, Polimec
- Stablecoin adoption programs in Argentina (Jakub) and Nigeria (Juba)
- Velocity: on-ramps, CEX integrations, DeFi protocols on the Hub
- We should be able to claim one RWA project for Polkadot
- Have someone dedicated to be able to talk to financial institutions
Gaming, Entertainment, NFTs
- Champions: Mythical, PMEI, Unique
- support indie game development (as second angle next to our Mythical efforts)
- music industry efforts via PMEI
DePin, Data, Oracles, AI
- Champions: OriginTrail
- warm up the relationship with peaq
- is Phala staying in Polkadot?
Social & Identity
- Champions: Kilt, Frequency
- experiments around proof-of-personhood
- build a Web3 community on a Frequency-bound social platform
GovTech
- Champions: Mandala
- we should come up with a strategy to reach out to selected governments, NGOs, political institutions, think tanks
Indicators of Success
- Our champions mentioned as best in class
- Media mentions in their specific industries
- Reported as profitable businesses, finding significant adoption, industry leaders
4.5. Economy - My first on-chain billy
This program focuses on growing the domestic on-chain economy.
Polkadot TVL rn is ~$100m. Ethereum TVL is $50b. Solana is $7b. Polkadot is clearly lagging.
Actions
- Grow Polkadot-owned liquidity as balance-sheet neutral market operations
- Continue incentive programs in strategic markets
- Attract interesting DeFi projects that compose together well with the existing ones
- support HOLAR launch
- create better tooling to analyze DeFi activity
Balance-Sheet Neutral Operations
Deploy 10m DOT balance sheet neutral
- Cash
- 2.5m DOT USDT
- 2.5m DOT USDC
- Treasury Diversification
- 1m DOT ETH and strategic Ethereum tokens
- 1m DOT BTC (tBTC, lBTC)
- Strengthening the DeFi economy
- clean-ups
- Bifrost repayment
- Pendulum?
- Claw back Centrifuge?
- Reconfigure Hydration stablecoin acquisition campaign 2 to do aDOT DCAing
- new initiatives
- 1m DOT HOLAR (minting)
- Deploy 1m DOT into vDOT & vDOT liquidity (check with TP)
- mint vDOT for 500k DOT
- deploy vDOT:DOT liquidity
- Deploy 1m DOT to Hydration Liquidity (gigaDOT, omnipool, money market(?))
- bridge liquidity?
- clean-ups
DOT Totals:
- 1m vDOT
- 1m HOLAR
- 1m Hydration liquidity
- 1m wETH and strategic Ethereum tokens
- 1m tBTC, lBTC
- 2.5m USDT
- 2.5m USDC
Incentives
- Bridge liquidity
- Distribute HOLAR als incentives?
Indicators of Success
- TVL and volume up
4.6. Services
This program develops our ecosystem services to provide projects with the support they need.
The leader of this program coordinates our services and makes sure they are properly staffed to deliver up to standard.
There is a range of ecosystem services funded through OpenGov and W3F that we need to better coordinate.
Actions
- coordinate ecosystem service teams, executing bounties
- introduce HR as a service unit to manage the complexities of our growing workforce
- introduce BI unit to serve the growing demand for insights
- introduce success as described in the program above
- establish agendas & OKRs for each service team
Indicators of Success
- good satisfaction with ecosystem services
- Success team signals no significant issues
Appendix
Appendix 1 - On Strategy
Do we really need this strategy?
Yes! Not having a strategy is not an option. Polkadot is not an isolated universe. The blockchain industry is moving at a rapid pace. Visions and tech stacks are evolving. Winning solutions are replicated in other ecosystems. Most blockchain ecosystems are driven in centralized ways with foundations that deploy armies of business developers. Just having the best tech stack today is not enough. History is full of examples where superior technology was beaten by products that were just faster to market. We can not only rely on great technology. Instead, we must aggressively implement a strategy that ensures the Polkadot ecosystem expands its position as a leader in Web3.
- need to align resources
- know what NOT to work on
But how can we have a strategy as a decentralized ecosystem?
The typical argument is that a decentralized ecosystem cannot have strategy because: Decentralization means that no single party has the power to dictate strategy. While some see this as a problem, it is really not. We are a hive mind. Our strategy is developed and implemented in a decentralized way. Polkadot is the sum of its people. We ecosystem agents coordinate and reach a soft consensus on the best path forward. Then everyone implements the strategy in their area of influence. Everyone can contribute! You are invited to become an agent! This document is just a set of ideas. Read it, take the best ideas, drop the rest, develop your own ideas, join the discussion, coordinate with others, get stuff done, and lead Polkadot to glory!
Appendix 2 - SWOT Analysis
To inform our strategy, we provide a summary of our SWOT analysis.
Strengths
- The Polkadot tech stack is widely recognized as being strong. The Polkadot SDK enabled the development of solochains and parachains. XCM is a leading interoperability standard currently connecting dozens of chains. Polkadotās relay chain technology recently facilitated 143k tps (at 23% capacity) on Kusama during a Spammening test run, a world record. Polkadot provides data availability bandwidth of 42MB/s (at 100 cores, or 2.5MB/core/block)
- Polkadot is a popular choice for real Web3 applications, while others mainly emphasize DeFi. It hosts a diverse range of industry-leading blockchains. To name just three examples: peaq hosts 50 DePIN projects with 6m devices totaling 3b USD in value. OriginTrailās supply chain infrastructure secures 400m+ knowledge assets for over 250 organizations, including 40% of US imports. Mythos chain has been among the top 5 chains in NFT sales volume and transactions.
- Polkadot is leading in developer and decentralization metrics. It is constantly among the Top 3 ecosystems in terms of developer count. Looking at decentralization, Polkadot leads with a Nakamoto coefficient of 148.
- Visionary Tech Leadership: Polkadotās tech leadership, especially Gavin Wood, is frequently cited as a strong reason for its continuous innovation.
Weaknesses
- Polkadot aggregate TVL is ~100m USD as of 2025-02-26, which is comparatively low to other ecosystems (compare Polkadot TVL to All Chains TVL)
- Polkadot has a steep learning curve and introduces complex concepts.
- Mindshare among VC and retail investors and users has been described as low.
- Go-to-market execution has struggled due to organizational challenges in in 2024.
Opportunities
- Emerging as the best-performing, lowest-cost architecture. Polkadotās upcoming JAM upgrade might become the best-performing, lowest-cost decentralized supercomputer with high shared security.
- Best offer to support Web3 applications of any scale. Polkadot optimizes to provide the right tech stack for applications of any scale, allowing them to consume more or less compute and data availability with elastic pricing as needed.
- Institutional adoption of the Web3 Cloud. Polkadotās positioning as Web3 Cloud provides an accessible tech stack and low-latency exposure to interoperate with other services in the Web3 space. Polkadotās focus on Web3, not just DeFi, creates a ground for adoption in numerous industries.
- Interoperability and co-processor Hub for other ecosystems. Polkadotās focus on interoperability puts it in a central position to settle significant value and transaction flow between ecosystems.
- Picking up the spoils of failed rollup and L1 experiments. Numerous restaking projects and L1s will struggle over the long term due to excessive rent, low throughput, and missing network effects. Polkadot will provide the right space for these projects to adapt their technologies to join Polkadotās rich Web3 ecosystem.
- Most capital-efficient DeFi and stablecoin infrastructure. Polkadotās customizability allows for the construction of highly capital-efficient products.
Threats
- Being outpaced by the network effects of competitors. Stronger TVL or user bases on other networks.
- Market sentiment and funding. A prolonged bear market can dry up funding for new projects or diminish user interest.
- Projects move out to other ecosystems. When projects expect better funding opportunities, attention, or support in other ecosystems, they might move off.
Appendix 3 - Recommended Reading
- BASED Budgeting
- Notes towards forming an Ecosystem Development Collective
- Legislation through WFCs
- Polkadot Treasury Report 2024
- Polkadot Cloud
Appendix 4 - Mindshare Materials
Target Groups
*WoM == Word of Mouth
Target Group | Core Brand Attribution | Channel | Owner |
---|---|---|---|
Protocol Researchers | JAM sophistication | Conferences, WoM | Gavin |
Cypherpunks | Kusama as a Playground | Conferences, WoM | Shawn |
Nerds | Playground & Social Hub | Socials, WoM, Media, Events | |
Developers | Best place to build Web3 | Socials, WoM, Media, Event | Karim? |
Founders | Flexible, Powerful, Sovereign | WoM | |
Web2 Businesses | Resilient, public, new business cases | Conferences | |
Protocols | Safe, cheap, flexible, powerful | Conferences, BD | Jakub? |
Enterprises | Margin, stack, flexibility | Conferences, BD | Ingo |
Institutional Investors | Strong fundamentals | Conferences, IR, Degens | Kori, Scytale, HIC |
Retail Investors | Gavin Wood, Best tech | Socials, WoM, Media | Evan Thomas? |
Degens | Vibes | Twitter, TG, Viral Content | Dots Mag, Gavun Wud |
Media | Gavin, Cypherpunks, Records | PR, 1on1, Ads | Distractive? |
State Actors | Sovereignty | Advocacy, Lobbyism | Ingo? |
Cloud & Hub 
Central to our strategy are Polkadot Cloud and Polkadot Hub. Polkadot Cloud is the key vision we communicate to stakeholders: Polkadot is a cloud of Web3 services that developers can tap into to build resilient applications. It is a concept that is immediately understandable to people even outside the blockchain industry. Polkadot Hub is the gateway for new users and developers, providing essential features and access to the broader Polkadot Cloud.
Major Events
The strategy has to consider the major events that will define the public narrative around Polkadot in the near term. Upcoming major events might include:
- Polkadot App Launch: Polkadotās entry-level consumer app to hold stables and DOT and shop in stores will first launch in the US and then expand to other markets.
- DOT ETF Listing: 21Shares and Grescale have filed for DOT ETFs in January and February 2025.
- Polkadot 2.0 Launch: This upgrade will enable Polkadot chains with high throughput demand to acquire additional resources from Polkadot.
- Polkadot Hub Launch: Polkadot Hub will introduce a major UX improvement to onboard users and entry-level developers to Polkadot.
- Next Spammening TPS World Record: Polkadot plans to expand on its current of 143k tps and push this number to several hundreds of thousands of even a million transactions per second.
- HOLAR Launch: Hydration will launch a new Polkadot-native stablecoin called HOLAR.
- Proof-of-Personhood Launch: This new mechanism allows humans to create on-chain profiles without revealing their identity. This enables new social tools, DAO governance mechanisms, UBI experiments, and more. The launch campaign might include several releases, such as a whitepaper and different individuality mechanisms.
- Kusama Cypherpunk Renaissance: This ongoing initiative pushes for Kusama to become a chain focused on experimention and privacy.
- JAM: While not expected to fully launch in 2025, significant milestones for this new supercomputer architecture upgrade of Polkadot can be expected
- Doom-on-chain POC: A proof-of-concept of the throughput capacity of JAM could be delivered by running the computer game Doom on-chain.
- JAM Launch: The JAM launch itself will support the existing parachain system of Polkadot as well as the possibility to create new kinds of services on JAM.
- CorePlay Launch: A significant new service for JAM will be CorePlay, a smart-contract-like environment following the actor model.
Regions
- USA
- Argentina
- Nigeria
- Hong Kong
- Singapore
- Dubai