Hello everyone, here is the Q2 2025 report from UX Bounty. Feel free to comment or contact us directly if you have any questions or feedback.
Thanks for the read!
Useful links
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All the reports → Quarter Reports
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Everything about the Polkadot UX Bounty → Polkadot UX Bounty HQ
1. Introduction
This report outlines the activities and expenditures of the Polkadot UX Bounty for Q2 2025, covering the period from April 4 to July 7, 2025.
Our main milestone this quarter is the successful pilot of the UX Audits Program with the completion of 5 audits. It also marked the start of our DevEx exploration and the onboarding of @niklasp as a curator focused on this topic.
In parallel, three new UXBs kicked off:
Alongside them, we have reserved our first Grant (still pending some details):
We also increased coordination with stakeholders like Parity, W3F, and other bounties. The goal: operate less as a silo, more as a integrated team aligned with ecosystem priorities. There’s still work to do, but we’re actively working to reduce duplication and inefficiencies.
On the communication front, we launched a website, an X account and ramped up our comms. We also started a UX Bounty tour, directly engaging OpenGov stakeholders to raise awareness of UX standards.
Lastly, Q2 marked our first attempt of quarterly planning with KPIs and success metrics. While some projects still lack tracking, all new initiatives moving forward must be measurable and tied to clear success criteria.
2. Finance Overview
2.1. DOT Holdings
Starting Amount (May 29, 2024 ): 67,678.00 DOT // ≈ 500,000 USD
Remaining Funds (July 7, 2025 ): 28,199.44 DOT // ≈ $95,596.11 USD
Note: The price of DOT at the time of this report (July 7, 2025) was $3.39.
2.2. Q1 Payout Summary
Note: Projects under the UX Bounty typically have a minimum duration of 3 to 4 months. Payments are made upon milestone completion, some projects are not yet reflected.
2.3. Budget Commentary
In Q2, as the curators’ responsibilities expanded, we found that a significant portion of our time was going toward direct project support — whether through curation, coordination, or hands-on execution.
This time was initially tracked under “Bounty Ops,” but that label wasn’t accurately reflecting how funds were being used.
To address this, we’ve revised our time tracking categories this quarter and formalized a clearer structure moving forward — making our reporting more transparent and resilient.
With this adjustment, and as our initiatives scale, we’re increasingly confident we’ll reach our target of a 30/70 Ops vs Projects ratio by the end of the year.
Below are the details and category breakdowns as of July 7, 2025.
2.3.1. Category Spend & Details Breakdown Q2
⇒ View the Budget Breakdown sheet
3. Quarterly Planning
As mentioned in the 2025 – Q1 report, we are proposing to the community a new structure for Q3 projects (see Ref #1662).
We aim to shift toward quarterly planning and budgeting as a way to deliver faster and better results than a six-month planning would allow.
This approach helps us stay aligned with the community, commit to defined and needed projects, while keeping some buffer for unexpected needs.
Our long-term vision is to operate as an agile business unit that can support the ecosystem with urgent priorities, deliver on time, and report with clear success metrics — every quarter.
We recognize that a quarterly structure may feel a bit heavier administratively, but we believe it’s the right trade-off to stay responsive in our ecosystem where priorities shift quickly.
4. Work Progress
4.1. Achievements – Q2 2025
Projects in implementation
Projects where the work has been delivered to the ecosystem teams and is now in implementation. The UX Bounty doesn’t have much control beyond this phase.
1. [UXB-1] – Unification of Address Format
This remains a high-priority initiative, though implementation depends on each rollup team’s timeline. Monthly follow-ups ensure community transparency. View status tracker.
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Upgraded: Bifrost, Hyperbridge, Hydration -
Confirmed for launch: Kylix, Mosaic
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ETA confirmed (Q3): Acala, Crust -
Pending ETA: Remaining rollups
2. [UXB-2] – DOT as a Unified Gas Token
Increased follow-ups provided clear status updates. View status tracker.
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Integrated: Bifrost, Hydration, Ajuna, Polimec, Kylix
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Not Interested: Kilt, Hyperbridge (reason) -
Pending ETA or response: Remaining rollups
3. [UXB-3] – Protective Measures for CEX Transfers
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Integrated: Talisman, SubWallet
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No ETA: Nova
4. [UXB-6] – UX Glossary
Promoted to key teams (Turtle, Bifrost), yet limited adoption so far. We are leveraging UX audits to encourage implementation and also tooltips templatized from the UI Library. Version 2 is paused pending broader adoption; reassessment likely in Q4.
Q2 Projects - In progress
Initiatives started this quarter.
1. UX Audits Program
Over 160 recommendations across SubSquare, Polkassembly, SubWallet, Mimir, and Polimec.
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SubSquare: 22 completed (15 high-impact), 5 in progress, 6 under review, 4 backlog
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Mimir: 5 completed (3 high-impact), 14 in progress (11 high-impact), 3 backlog
Initially planned 6 audits, but onboarding Jelly Studio required evaluation before further assignments.
⇒ See the Implementation Tracker.
2. UXB-7 – Unified UI Library
Led by niftesty. Research confirms the need for a PoC UI library based on best practices in modern frontend development with a simple to use cli and full component ownership, building on existing tooling like papi, dedot and reactive-dot.
3. UXB-8 – Bridge UX
Collaboration with Distractive for a Bridges page on polkadot.com and route mapping research by @ThomasR. Currently at MVP stage; community feedback forthcoming to guide next steps.
4. UXB-9 - OpenGov Voting System
Developing an improved voting system with section-specific comments for OpenGov referenda.
⇒ Provide feedback and help scope the project.
5. Turtle Grant (reserved)
Grant initiative supporting Turtle’s cross-chain swap widget. Aims to promote cross chain swap best practices ecosystem-wide.
6. Ecosystem Support: AHM & HUB
Supporting Parity, Velocity, and Magenta with:
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Coordination for Asset Hub Migration (AHM).
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UX tooling list for HUB to help BD teams in their effort.
Our involvement is minimal for those projects yet strategic and we make sure our resources are ready for them.
4.2. Comparison from our last report
It can be hard to remember what we said last quarter, so we’ve compiled our Q2 insights alongside our Q1 notes in the table below for easy reference.
| What we said in our last report | What we did |
|---|---|
| With the UX Audit Grants Program now underway, we aim to deliver six (6) UX audits by the end of Q2. | We completed 5 audits this quarter finally. As we onboarded a new agency (Jelly Studio) in the program, we first wanted to assess their work before giving them 2 audits directly. |
| In parallel, curators have been actively working through the UX backlog — cleaning, refining, and prioritizing issues. | We have cleaned up the backlog and are now only using Notion as a source of truth. It is still not structured perfectly but considering our capacity, we prefer focusing on delivering projects rather than being perfect. The cleaning will continue in Q3. |
| Starting in May, we’ll kick off four new UXBs: • Unified UI Library • Crypto Tax Reporting Tool • Improved OpenGov Voting & Feedback System • Bridge Discoverability |
• Unified UI Library (UXB-7) → in progress (see details above) • Crypto Tax Reporting Tool → on pause as W3F granted a team to tackle this topic • OpenGov Voting & Feedback System → in scoping with SubSquare, Polkassembly and JUST team • Bridge Discoverability → now “UXB-8 - Bridge UX” and in progress (see details above) |
| We’re also reviewing new grant applications that could be added as Ecosystem Standards, and additional projects are currently under discussion, with some expected to begin in early Q3. | We have not found our stance with our grant program quite yet and are still refining it. Beyond funding, we are helping grantees to: • Identify and align with ecosystem stakeholders • Define realistic milestones and budgets • Deliver real value with milestones and success-driven payouts • Ensure long term commitment Our first grant is going to Turtle for its swap widget. We will help them push this solution across the whole ecosystem and make it a standard, continuing our work to set best practices and standards. |
| Scaling Impact Through Ecosystem Collaboration As mentioned in the budget commentary section, we’ve also ramped up collaboration with ecosystem teams — and will continue to do so across several initiatives: • Relay Chain Migration • Cross-Bounty Strategy • DevEx • Hub Initiative |
• Relay Chain Migration → Ongoing • Cross-Bounty Strategy → We haven’t made a cross-bounty grant yet, but we have ramped up syncing with OSG bounty • DevEx → We’ve onboarded niftesty as curator to lead this. UXB-7 is in progress and other projects are planned for Q3 • Hub Initiative → The tooling list is ready and will be reviewed in Q3 with Velocity and Magenta. We remain in reactive mode to support key players if needed |
5. Stay Connected
To get all the updates from the UX Bounty, follow us on X, join the UX Guild on Telegram, or be on the lookout in the Forum 