It is near the end of Q1 and I haven’t seen any JAM updates in the last few months.
Also, I am seeing on X that some teams are pausing development due to lack of payment for their M1 submissions from W3F.
What is happening behind the scenes? Why aren’t submissions being evaluated or teams being paid?
From what I’ve seen, things aren’t exactly “stalled,” but they’re definitely slower and messier than people expected. A big part of it is that payments aren’t tied to submission alone - they only happen after the protocol gets properly ratified and all checks are done.
There are actually teams submitting M1 (I’ve seen mentions of ~15), but evaluation, conformance testing, and changing specs seem to be creating bottlenecks. Also, the graypaper keeps evolving, so teams end up reworking stuff instead of moving forward cleanly.
So from the outside it looks quiet, but behind the scenes it feels more like uncertainty + coordination issues than inactivity.