I K

Manchester United fan | A big believer of @Polkadot Ecosystem | Wagger and Team member @thatMediaWag

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

Check out our weekly newsletter for the full roundup of news and events.
👇🏻
https://t.co/uVtO6fddot

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

Make a wish—May 26th to June 1st

𝘕𝘦𝘸𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺. 𝘊𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺. 𝘉𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘖𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘎𝘰𝘷.

🔹Happy birthday, Polkadot! May 26th marked six years since the network produced its genesis block and officially went live.

🔹peaq and Akash Network have launched decentralized elastic compute for machines running peaqOS via robotic•sh. This allows robots to access external GPU and CPU resources when onboard hardware reaches its limits. The capability was demonstrated with a Unitree humanoid autonomously purchasing compute to retrain warehouse models.

🔹The 12-month BLAST campaign has wrapped, with Nova Wallet’s Nova Shots onboarding roughly 48,000 users to the Polkadot ecosystem. Across eight Counter-Strike 2 tournaments on four continents, players generated around 2.86 million transactions on Hydration via the free-to-play prediction platform.

🔹apyUSD from Apyx is now live on Hydration. The yield-bearing stablecoin targets 13% APY through its STRC holdings, with returns that can be amplified through leveraged looping strategies in the Money Market.

🔹At the other end of the risk spectrum, Hydration has also introduced fixed-yield HOLLAR bonds, offering a 6.9% APR paid at maturity. The 90-day bonds carry no liquidation or impermanent loss risk, with principal and yield returned on a fixed redemption date. Until the cap fills, later buyers may see higher effective annualized returns as maturity approaches.

🔹Bifrost Referendum 515, now passed, initiates repayment of the vDOT liquidity loan issued under Polkadot Referendum 1538. The 1M DOT principal will be returned alongside 53,185.39 DOT in staking yield, representing a 5.318% return over the loan period.

🔹Oliver Tale Yazdi, tech lead at Parity, has built The Chamber, a collaborative staging area for drafting OpenGov proposals. Deployed on Polkadot Hub, it runs as a Rust contract via pallet-revive, with XCM handling submission to OpenGov. Reviewers iterate in a structured pre-onchain flow, reducing errors that lead to “please vote nay” referenda.

🔹OriginTrail co-founder and CTO Branimir Rakic appeared at the Cursor Meetup in Ljubljana on May 28th, where he presented context graphs as a key building block for shared memory and coordination among AI agents.

Written by @yaydotoi

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

So, AssetHub is evolving.

From holding assets
➡️To moving assets
➡️To building on top of them

Still early.
But the direction is clear: Utility.

END

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

Contract deployment is one thing.
Usage is another.

Contract events jumped from:
20K → 171K ( April ➡️ May)

Indicating real interactions with deployed logic.

4/

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

But the big change?
Smart contracts are now live on AssetHub.

And in just 4 months:
🔹Contracts deployed: 20 → 260
🔹Growth accelerating sharply in April & May

Up 188% in the past 3 months.

An early-stage breakout behavior.

3/

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

Cross-chain activity remains one of its strongest signals.

AssetHub is now closing the gap with Hydration in cross-chain volume, routing more value across the ecosystem.

A sign of its growing relevance in cross-chain flows.

2/

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

6 months after AssetHub migration on @Polkadot…

What’s actually changed?

🧵1/5
https://t.co/DUDBr3XqFE

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

Bridges such as Snowbridge and Hyperbridge are expanding reach.

Snowbridge alone peaked at $180M inflows.

And with JAM on the horizon…
the infrastructure phase is maturing.

The next phase?
Products.

6 years in, Polkadot is entering its breakout phase.

END

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

OpenGov changed governance entirely.

From passive holders → to active decision-makers.

Since its launch in June 2023, DOT holders have been directly shaping the network’s future.

~1.9K Refs so far.

It is still evolving, but already clear:
coordination is happening on-chain.

9/

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

Staking pools expanded staking access.

Users no longer need large holdings to participate.

Even 1 DOT can now contribute to securing the network.

More inclusion
Broader participation
Stronger network effects

8/

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

Validator growth reflects increasing decentralization.

From early stages to 600 active validators today.

More validators
Greater resilience
Stronger security
Reduced centralisation risk

7/

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

Supply dynamics are evolving.

From a fixed inflation model
to a 2.1B DOT cap introduced in 2026.

Projected to hit cap in 2160.

As DOT issuance slows over time, its scarcity gradually becomes a part of the system.

6/

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

Staking continues to signal long-term conviction.

Even as participation fluctuates,
over 50% of DOT has remained staked for most periods in the past 2+ years.

Participation shifts.
Commitment doesn't.

5/

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

AssetHub has become a critical infrastructure.

Evolving from simple asset issuance
to a hub for liquidity and programmability.

Offloading core functions such as staking and governance from the Relay Chain and enabling more coordination across the ecosystem.

4/

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

Stablecoins are becoming a core layer of activity.

From ~$12M across chains in Sep 2023
to $78M+ today (peaking at $277M in 2025)

Liquidity moving across the ecosystem!

3/

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

What started as a vision for a multi-chain future is now a live system coordinating assets, apps, and governance across chains.

Turning interoperability into reality via its cross chain mechanism!

With 2.1M+ cross chain messages so far and activities peaking in 2025.

2/

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

_ @Polkadot - 6 Years After Genesis Block

...what actually changed?
🧵TL/DR

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

Caught by the fuzz—May 19th to May 25th

𝘕𝘦𝘸𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺. 𝘊𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺. 𝘉𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘖𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘎𝘰𝘷.

🔹JAM Implementers are now putting their builds through an automated Milestone 1 conformance fuzzer designed to detect deviations from the Gray Paper 0.7.2 specs. JamZig, JamBrains (Parity), and JavaJAM have already passed and attested their results on Asset Hub, advancing to interviews with the Polkadot Technical Fellowship.

🔹Yanis Varoufakis has been announced as the headliner for Web3 Summit 2026, joining Gavin Wood, Joan Westenberg, Friederike Ernst, and Amir Taaki in a lineup bringing together critics, builders, and researchers focused on digital freedom, privacy, and decentralized technology.

🔹NAVER Maps is now accessible to machines running peaqOS through the robotic·sh marketplace, giving autonomous robots across supported chains access to a world-leading mapping platform. The launch was showcased with a simulated Serve Robotics delivery robot navigating Seoul and settling payments in USDT without human intervention.

🔹Celebrating the return to a $1M market cap, the Gavun Wud Treasury is distributing a 2B WUD reward pool. Purchases made within 48 hours of the milestone qualify for a 10% WUD boost if held for more than 12 days.

🔹Just one week after launching its HackenProof bug bounty program, Hyperbridge has already paid out more than $120,000 to security researchers stress-testing the protocol following April’s MMR verifier exploit. The program covers the full Hyperbridge repository, with rewards ranging from $200 for low-severity findings up to $50,000 for critical vulnerabilities.

🔹The Infrastructure Builders Program (IBP) has submitted a proposal requesting 1.22M DOT to fund Polkadot and Kusama RPC infrastructure for core ecosystem chains and services through February 2027.

🔹Xcavate CTO Richard Houldsworth and COO Annie Loo held an AMA on May 19th, offering updates on realXmarket, realXeducation, regulatory progress, and token genesis.

Written by @yaydotoi

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

Check out our weekly newsletter for the full roundup of news and events.
👇🏻
https://t.co/Hnb1UAFp7U

[WagMedia | Polkadot Creators HUB @thatMediaWag]

Stake It Up—May 12th to May 18th

𝘕𝘦𝘸𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺. 𝘊𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺. 𝘉𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘖𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘎𝘰𝘷.

🔹Acurast has launched Cargo on mainnet, enabling developers to run Linux containers across a decentralized network of Android smartphones. This milestone offers a familiar cloud setup and coding language freedom to run standard applications using the same workflow as traditional web hosting.

🔹peaqOS is now integrated in LG’s CLOiSim simulation environment, showcasing how service robots can coordinate tasks and settle payments autonomously onchain. An autonomous room-service demonstration highlights a pay-per-skill model for robotics, where machines earn directly for completed work instead of operating under fixed lease contracts.

🔹Kusama Shield has open-sourced its front-end library, enabling its zk-proof based privacy-preserving token transfers to be adapted across any EVM-compatible chain.

🔹Two weeks after launch, PlazaFun, a memepad for Polkadot Hub, is starting to build momentum, with 17 tokens battling to become the first to fill their bonding curve and graduate to the PlazaSwap DEX. Leading the pack is WUDKA, a beverage for the community when crackin’ a cold one just doesn’t quite hit the spot.

🔹The new Hyperbridge bug bounty has launched on HackenProof, offering a maximum payout of $50K for critical vulnerabilities.

🔹Polkadot Referendum 1890, if passed, will raise the minimum validator self-stake to 10K DOT. Once enacted, validators below the threshold risk being chilled, while a follow-up referendum to make nominators unslashable is expected in June.

🔹As the Moonbeam x HELLO Labs Gaming Incubator wraps up, participants are getting ready to take the stage. On May 19th, Outmine, Olderfall, Kugle, and N3mus will pitch their projects on Killer Whales Live, where industry leaders and the audience will decide which projects SINK or SWIM.

Written by @yaydotoi