Summary
This proposal advocates for the complete removal of the Bounties pallet from the Polkadot runtime.
While the Bounties system was originally introduced to support decentralized funding for ecosystem initiatives, experience has shown that it adds significant governance complexity, locks Treasury capital for extended periods, and provides limited advantages over direct Treasury funding through OpenGov.
Removing the pallet would simplify the runtime, improve Treasury efficiency, and reduce governance overhead.
Motivation
1. Inefficient Treasury Capital Allocation
Bounties reserve Treasury funds that may remain locked for months or even years before being completed—or, in some cases, never completed at all.
This reduces the Treasury’s flexibility and prevents capital from being allocated to higher-priority initiatives.
2. Limited Accountability
Compared to direct Treasury proposals, many bounties lack clearly defined milestones, objective performance metrics, or regular community oversight.
This makes it difficult to assess whether Treasury resources are being used efficiently.
3. Increased Governance Complexity
The Bounties system introduces additional governance layers through:
- Curators
- Curator replacement procedures
- Beneficiary assignments
- Dedicated lifecycle management
These additional processes increase complexity without providing proportional value.
4. Long-Term Inactive Bounties
Some bounties remain inactive for extended periods while still occupying on-chain storage and reserving Treasury funds.
Removing the system would eliminate this source of governance and operational inefficiency.
5. Misaligned Incentives
The curator model can create incentives that do not always prioritize efficient Treasury management or timely completion of funded work.
A simpler funding process would improve transparency and accountability.
6. Runtime Maintenance
Every runtime pallet increases:
- Code maintenance requirements
- Storage migration complexity
- Audit surface
- Overall runtime complexity
Removing unnecessary functionality contributes to a leaner and more maintainable protocol.
Proposed Changes
This proposal recommends:
- Deprecating the Bounties pallet.
- Closing all active bounties.
- Returning any remaining Treasury funds to the Treasury.
- Removing all associated on-chain storage.
- Excluding the Bounties pallet from future runtime releases.
Expected Benefits
- Simpler runtime architecture.
- Reduced governance complexity.
- More efficient Treasury capital allocation.
- Greater transparency in Treasury spending.
- Lower long-term maintenance costs.
- Reduced operational overhead.
Alternative Funding
Removing the Bounties pallet does not eliminate Treasury funding.
Projects and contributors would continue to receive funding through standard Treasury proposals approved by OpenGov, providing:
- Direct community oversight.
- Transparent funding decisions.
- Explicit governance approval.
- Clearer accountability.
Conclusion
The Bounties system has served its purpose during earlier stages of the network’s development. However, as Polkadot’s governance has matured, the mechanism has become increasingly redundant and unnecessarily complex.
Removing the Bounties pallet would simplify the protocol, improve Treasury efficiency, reduce governance overhead, and allow Treasury resources to be allocated through more transparent and accountable mechanisms.