Elaboration on Polkadot Latest Development and 2022 Web3.0 Bootcamp Enrollment
Helena, Head of Parity Asia Pacific and Hao Yunkun, Senior Director of Wanxiang Blockchain shared the latest development of Polkadot and introduced 2022 Web3.0 Bootcamp in Wanxiang Blockchain Fengchao Online Meeting on Apr.8. Here’s the transcription of their sharing translated from the Chinese version.
Hao Yukun: Hi, I’m Hao Yukun from Wanxiang Blockchain. It’s a great honor to introduce Web3.0 Bootcamp with Helena.
It’s not easy to hold Web3.0 Bootcamp for the third year running. First held in 2020, Web3.0 Bootcamp focuses on different topics and tracks that are highly relevant to the development of Polkadot ecosystem.
In 2022 Web3.0 Bootcamp, we will continue to casting promising Web3.0 startups and hope that the selected teams will achieve significant progress and contribute more to the Web3.0 ecosystem in this 6-month bootcamp. Helena will provide more details about this bootcamp later.
Wanxiang Blockchain Labs and New Chainbase, as the co-hosts of Web3.0 Bootcamp, have been dedicated to offering precious resources, such as investment, financing, marketing opportunities, etc. to selected teams over the past two years, which were of great help to their sustainable growth.
That’s all I would like to share. Let’s give the floor to Helena.
Helena：Good afternoon! Nice to meet you in the 85th Fengchao Online Meeting hosted by Wanxiang Blockchain and New Chainbase. I’m Helena, Head of Parity Asia Pacific.
Firstly, I would like to introduce myself a little bit. I’m in charge of the Parity team that is dedicated to developing and constructing Polkadot ecosystem in Asia Pacific. Our team was established 3 years ago. If you are familiar with Polkadot and our ecosystem, you may understand the importance and influence of the Asia Pacific ecosystem to the whole Polkadot ecosystem. Besides, it’s also my third year to host Web3.0 Bootcamp with Wanxiang Blockchain Labs and New Chainbase.
Thanks for having me to share with you the latest development of Polkadot ecosystem and I will also talk about the annual events of Parity and Web3 Foundation in Asia Pacific and the enrollment of 2022 Web3.0 Bootcamp. I believe you may all be very familiar with the network structure, technology and vision of Polkadot as it has come into being for 6 years. So I’ll skip this part. Since the launch of Polkadot mainnet in May, 2022, the network and functions of Polkadot as well as the projects in this ecosystem have all achieved stunning and sustainable progress and I’ll focus on the latest development of the Polkadot ecosystem today.
When it comes to the Polkadot ecosystem, you may only think of the projects that have already become or are going to become the parachains of Polkadot and Kusama. But I would like to emphasize, and I have been reiterating this point in different occasions, that we define all chains and applications built upon Substrate as Polkadot ecosystem projects. Both Parity and Web3 Foundation are eager to see more and more Substrate projects become the parachains or parathreads in Polkadot. But I think it may be more appropriate to evaluate Polkadot ecosystem with the numbers of active developers and projects on Substrate as the active developers and projects are ultimately fundamental to L1 public chain ecosystems. I’ll show you some statistics that demonstrate the sustainable and rapid development of Substrate technology and the Polkadot ecosystem.
First, there are over 400 Substrate-based projects as far as Parity and Web3 Foundation can track, and likely more than 500 tracked by the community. In this chart, you can see how the number has been going up since Jun.2019. The number was a bit over 180 by the end of 2020 and almost doubled to over 350 at the end of 2021. You may know that Substrate is developed with Rust, a language with steep learning curve for beginners and Substrate itself is a relatively complicated technology composed of over 200 components and modules. So it takes more time and efforts to adopt Substrate than to Solidity. The result of our survey in a technology community indicates that the time it takes to learn Substrate from the very beginning is twice or even three times of that of Solidity.
Despite of such difficulties, we still see the number of Substrate projects surging, which speaks for the strength of Substrate and Polkadot ecosystem. Such strength is supported by our well-prepared underlying technology and will deliver the sustainable development of our ecosystem in the future.
To give a closer look at the Polkadot projects, 320 projects are under development while 68 projects have been launched at the end of 2021.
Dividing the 400 or so projects into specific categories, the top10 categories are DeFi & NFT infrastructure, identity, smart contract, decentralized storage, privacy, on-chain data analysis and so on. Often it takes less time and lower cost to develop applications, as compared to develop and launch a chain, the percentages of such projects will naturally be high in all major L1 ecosystems. However, we can obviously see that in comparison with other major L1 ecosystem, the percentage of Web3 infrastructural projects such as decentralized storages, decentralized identities, decentralized computing and etc, that often require to build chains in Polkadot ecosystem is higher. Using Substrate to develop and launch chains is no doubt the best technology choice for blockchain developers and hence naturally Substrate will bring more and more quality projects to Polkadot ecosystem. Therefor it is not a surprise that we would see the number of Web 3.0 infrastructural projects increasing in Polkadot ecosystem as they most likely develop chains based on Substrate.
This slid shows the geographic distribution of Substrate projects. One third of these projects are based in Asia Pacific. This echoes what I mentioned above that Polkadot and our projects and communities are very active in Asia Pacific.
Next, let’s look at the number of Substrate developers. The white table shows the top5 ecosystems in terms of developer numbers cited from the Electric Capital’s 2021 Blockchain Developer Report. Ranking by the number of developers, the top5 ecosystems are Ethereum, Polkadot, Bitcoin, Cosmos and Solana. Electric Capital calculated the number of active developers by unique Github IDs according to their own criteria, which is different from ours. In spite of the different statistical methods of Electric Capital and ours, both the number of active developers and the increment indicate that the Polkadot ecosystem is growing rapidly.
Besides, the black table in the lower right corner demonstrates the number of Substrate developers tracked by ourselves. We can see clearly that the number keeps growing and has amounted to thousands of developers, indicating that our developer communities are growing rapidly.
I believe these statistics may give you a clearer picture of the Polkadot ecosystem and the rapid development should be attributed to the great support of Parity and Web3 Foundation. Let’s look at the support Parity and Web3 Foundation have provided to promote the Polkadot ecosystem from the perspectives of 1) financial support, 2) technology & knowledge, 3) social networking and community.
Firstly, in terms of financial support, we have the Web3 Foundation Grant Program and the Polkadot and Kusama Treasury Program. The Web3 Foundation Grant Program, launched in 2018, was designed to sponsor excellent technical programs that would empower our ecosystem. This grant program consists of three levels and qualified projects can get financial sponsorship between $30,000 to $100,000. The Web3 Foundation Grant Program has covered all tracks in the Polkadot ecosystem, including bridges, developer tools, applications, etc. 2021 marked the third anniversary of this grant program when we offered grants to over 380 projects which covered every layer of Polkadot technical stacks. For more details about the Web3 Foundation Grant Program, you may visit the website: https://web3.foundation/grants/.
Next, let’s move on to the Polkadot and Kusama Treasury Program, which is less known and has yet to be made the best of. The Treasury, a governance mechanism innovated by Polkadot，is by nature a capital pool consisting of part of the block reward, transaction fee, the capital earned by slashing bad nodes, etc. Our Treasury has its income and spending mechanisms. We can propose to spend the capital from the Treasury on the deployment and maintenance of infrastructure, network security operation, community activities, etc. By Jan. 1, 2021, the Polkadot Treasury had issued almost 200,000 DOT and Kusama Treasury had issued about 70,000 KSM to different teams and individuals, sponsoring over 1,000 proposals. The Polkadot Treasury has now over 25 million DOT while the Kusama Treasury holds over 530 thousand KSM. The well-performed Treasury mechanism contributes to the rapid development of the Polkadot ecosystem.
Secondly, in terms of knowledge and technology support, Parity has offered abundant technical support to our developers, including Substrate courses, hackathons, Substrate Builders Program and so on. I’ll share with you more information about these courses and trainings. Polkadot has developed both online and offline trainings help developers to learn more about the technologies they need and have a better understanding of Polkadot.
For example, to expand the technical influence of the Polkadot ecosystem, Parity has held technical trainings for Substrate developers in Chinese communities for 3 years since 2019. By the end of 2021, Parity has trained over 2000 developers with 16 batches of courses. These courses are one of the major factors that turn Polkadot into the second largest public chain ecosystem, next only to Ethereum. Meanwhile, Parity and Web3 Foundation also made a series of learning videos on the Polkadot ecosystem and technologies, with different language versions available, to meet the demands of different users and help the Polkadot ecosystem go global.
Thirdly, speaking of networking and community support, we aim to introduce all projects into the Polkadot ecosystem through our annual events and conferences, such as Sub0, a Substrate Dev Conference focusing on technology exploration and discussion, DotCon, a global roadshow of the Polkadot ecosystem projects, Polkadot Decoded, a global community conference for Polkadot ecosystem, Web3 Summit and so on. These global conferences have not only enhanced the development of the Polkadot ecosystem but also timely updated more people of the latest development of the ecosystem.
At last, I would like to talk our comprehensive support programs that combine the support of product, technology, project operation, financing and so on in one event and I’ll illustrate this kind of support with our Web3.0 Bootcamp.
Web3.0 Bootcamp is a training and incubation program co-hosted by Parity, Web3 Foundation, Wanxiang Blockchain and New Chainbase and designed to encourage blockchain innovation. This bootcamp has been leveraging the resources of Wanxiang Blockchain ecosystem and Polkadot global ecosystem to support Web3.0 startups in technology, product, capital, cooperation, etc. We hope this will help the startups to grow and contribute to the sustainable development of Web3 ecosystem.
Web3.0 Bootcamp aims to help startups in two ways. To begin with, we will help the companies to improve their management and operation ability with basic courses, covering such topics as the policies and regulations of the Chinese Blockchain industry, business model, financing, the human resources management of decentralized organizations, development community establishment and operation, product design and management, etc. Meanwhile, we also have blockchain courses that will help the developers to build up their blockchain technical skills. These courses are privacy computing research, blockchain use cases in automobile industry, smart city, insurance industry and supply chain finance, blockchain investment and regulation, DeFi mechanism study, Blockchain standard introduction and so on.
On top of that, based on our strong technology network and ability, Polkadot and Parity offer the selected teams technology development courses on Polkadot’s global resources and practical support, Runtime development, off-chain working machine, parachains/parathreads, validator node construction, mechanism research, framework review, Polkadot economics, etc. So you can see that Web3.0 Bootcamp is an incubation event that tries to help Web3.0 startups grow and become mature. The first batch held in Mar. 2020 and the second batch held in May 2021 gave rise to many renowned Polkadot projects, including Acala, Moonbeam, Astar, Bifrost, Phala who made significant contributions to the development of the Polkadot ecosystem.
This bootcamp aims to fulfill such goals as incubating high quality Substrate projects, selecting parachain and parathread candidates, expanding Polkadot’s presence in Asia Pacific, especially in China, etc.
Web3 Foundation and Parity will offer extensive technology support through various training courses on Substrate’s new features, development and the latest news. Moreover, the selected teams of Web3.0 Bootcamp will also be recommended to other major Polkadot events.
Apart from the technical resources, Wanxiang Blockchain will offer the selected teams top investment opportunities, media and community resources, and lecture courses on policy, financing, marketing, etc, which are all of great help to startups.
All selected teams can enjoy the marketing and branding opportunities provided by Parity, Web3 Foundation and Wanxiang Blockchain that include Web3 Summit, monthly offline events and Demo Day. We aim to introduce all selected teams to top Polkadot investors and help them get necessary resources for sustainable development.
The selection criteria of 2022 Web3.0 Bootcamp are as follows:
Built on Substrate
As I mentioned in the very beginning, the Polkadot ecosystem is built upon Substrate, so the first requirement for projects that are going to apply for this bootcamp is that they should be built on Substrate.
Innovation and Uniqueness
Unique and innovative teams never fail to win the favor of investors, communities and markets, so we would like to incubate a number of innovative projects who will hopefully add something new to the Polkadot ecosystem and Web3.0.
Representativeness and Indispensability
It’s not uncommon to see blockchain projects flocking into hot tracks. As a representative of Web3.0, Polkadot welcome teams from different tracks to join us and we hope that the selected teams will work together to build a future oriented ecosystem by learning from each other. As we already have many DeFi and NFT projects in the Polkadot ecosystem, projects focusing on other tracks that few projects are focusing on will be preferred.
Technology Completeness
A Strong Executive Ability
A Clear Business Model
We also require that the selected teams should be strong in technology and execution so as to bring their technical and business plans into action. Besides, a clear business model will help the teams to think about such questions as whether their products can meet market expectation and whether their products can win more users and market share, which are key to the commercialization of their projects.
Here are the six criteria for 2022 Web3.0 Bootcamp enrollment. If you are interested in this bootcamp, please scan the QR code in the lower right corner and apply before Apr.26. We will then interview the teams after a preliminary selection.
That’s all I would like to share about the latest development of the Polkadot ecosystem and the enrollment criteria of 2022 Web3.0 Bootcamp. We welcome you to pay more attention to and build your projects on Polkadot and develop Web3.0 communities and ecosystem with us. We will also hold various activities, such as Web3.0 Bootcamp to help you develop your projects, become Polkadot parachain candidates and contribute more to Web3.0
Let’s work together to build a better Web3.0. That’s all. Thank you!
Q&A：
Moderator: Is there any cost to participate 2022 Web3.0 Bootcamp?
Helena: No. We will not charge any fees or take any equity for program enrollment. But we may hold some offline events in Shanghai, China. Teams just need to pay for their travel fees to/from Shanghai.
Moderator: Will the event hosts provide visas to selected teams?
Helena: We are sorry that we are unable to provide visas to selected teams or apply for visas on their behalf. But we are willing to share our experience in visa application.
Moderator: Are there any other must-haves apart from based on Substrate for joining this bootcamp? A whitepaper, for example?
Helena: Yes, a technical white paper is a must-have. We expect that the selected teams have a clear understanding of the prospect of their projects and a distinct development plan. At the same time, we will provide precious resources to help the well-prepared teams to incubate and accelerate their projects in the following 3 to 6 months, listing them in parachain candidates and making them ready for the next ground of financing or product launching. Only the teams who have outstanding technical and executive abilities will win the most support in this bootcamp.
Moderator: What kind of projects will be favored by this bootcamp? Does this bootcamp have a preference over NFT or DeFi projects that are relatively popular?
Hao Yukun: Thank you for your question. We don’t have any preference over certain kinds of projects. Web3.0 is full of diversity. Though we may see projects on certain tracks are very popular in a certain time period, you may find opportunities in different areas of Web3.0 in the long run. So, we welcome projects from different tracks to apply for this bootcamp.
As Helena mentioned before, we will keep focusing on infrastructure and hardcore technologies. Projects that will help to solve the hard core technical issues in the blockchain ecosystem are highly wanted. But I want to reiterate that we don’t have any restrictions on the tracks for teams who want to apply for this bootcamp. As long as you are innovative in technology, please don’t hesitate to join us!
As Web3.0 Bootcamp coming to the third year, we can see a clear strategic plan and an acute problem solving plan have been formulated in the Polkadot ecosystem. Looking back to the first Web3.0 Bootcamp in 2020, Polkadot mainnet was waiting to be launched. So, the selected teams like Astar, Phala, etc were more focused on the underlying applications and hardcore technologies.
The second Web3.0 Bootcamp was held in 2021 when Polkadot mainnet was launched and parachains were under construction, so we selected more parachain projects like Moonbeam.
The third Web3.0 Bootcamp in 2022 will try to make the whole ecosystem more diversified while still putting technology high on the agenda.
In a nutshell, we welcome projects from all tracks to apply for this bootcamp. You may focus on hardcore technologies like privacy preserving and smart contracts or other tracks like parachain, application and so on.
That’s all. Thank you.
Moderator: Is there anything we can do in advance to make it more possible for us to be selected to this bootcamp?
Hao Yukun: You should firstly improve your technical ability as technical innovation is core to the Polkadot ecosystem. Gavin Wood, Founder of Polkadot, is a coder himself and keeps coding. So we suggest that you should demonstrate your technical strength together with other abilities.
Secondly, as Helena mentioned before, you should build a clear business model. The blockchain industry has travel through several periods, so many blockchain projects have already become very mature. Besides, we have also held Web3.0 bootcamp for three years and are quite experienced in judging your operational abilities. So we hope that teams who are interested in applying for this bootcamp will clearly explain their business model in the application material and the interview.
Medorator: Thanks Mr. Hao for your answer. Helena, do you have something to add?
Helena：Polkadot Decoded will held in cities around the world this years. These cities will be divided into three different districts in accordance with the languages they use.
We are honored to announce that Shanghai may host the Polkadot Decoded in the Chinese speaking district. But the specific venue and time for this event are still under discussion.
Anyway, the message I would like to share is that Polkadot is going to hold large scale face-to-face events around the world this year. We hope that those who are interested about Polkadot to take an active participation in Polkadot Decoded and get ready for the surprise gifts that we are preparing for you.
By the way, we will have a Polkadot ecosystem communication conference from Jun.20 to Jun.30. If you are interested about this conference, please go to the official website of Polkadot Decoded to get more details.
That’s all. Thank you.
Moderator: Mr. Hao, would like to say something to encourage all the teams who are going to apply for this bootcamp?
Hao Yukun: As I mentioned before, Web3.0 Bootcamp has come to its third year and it took us great efforts to hold this event for three consecutive years.
The reason why we launched this event two years ago was that we saw the real needs of startups. There were many hackathons, VC and investors in the blockchain ecosystem, but the problem of how to help hackathon winners to develop their award-winning projects into startups of real business value remained unsolved. In this connection, Web3.0 Bootcamp attempted to solve this problem by providing the resources that necessary to the sustainable development of startups.
We welcome all of you to join Web3.0 Bootcamp and the vigorous, promising and dynamic Polkadot ecosystem to make your projects better by leveraging the achievements we’ve made in previous bootcamps.
Thank you!
