Today, the Web3 Foundation (W3F) is entering a new chapter, one that is defined by focus, purpose, and a deliberate return to our founding mission: stewarding and accelerating the technologies that make decentralized web possible at a global scale.

Over the years, W3F played a highly active, hands-on role in helping bootstrap networks such as Polkadot and Kusama. This phase was instrumental in bringing these networks to life and supporting the early growth of their communities, governance, and technical foundations.

Today, these ecosystems have reached a level of maturity, and Polkadot has shifted its focus on building products to deliver real-world utility. This stage of development is being led by Parity Technologies and the broader ecosystem of builders contributing to the network.

As the ecosystem evolves, so too must the role of the Foundation.

Back to the Roots

While remaining a committed advocate for the Web3 movement, W3F is narrowing its operational scope and returning to the role it was originally designed to play: championing the long-term vision of Web3 while ensuring that resources entrusted to the Foundation are deployed responsibly.

Going forward, the Foundation will concentrate on two core pillars: evangelizing and advancing the decentralized web globally and safeguarding its assets in alignment with its Web3 mission to support the long-term success of the ecosystem.

Streamlining Our Efforts

As part of this strategic shift, several initiatives have already concluded, including:

• General Grants Program
• Support
• Decentralized Voices
• Decentralized Nodes

Over the past year, W3F has undertaken a thorough review of its programs and resources. Several bounties and initiatives consuming significant resources were closed, spending was audited, and clearer guidelines and documentation were established based on lessons learned. As part of this continuing realignment, several initiatives and programs such as JAM Prize, Polkadot Governance Support, Polkadot Wiki, Knowledge Base, Kusama Vision, and developer documentation will be evaluated and transitioned to other teams and organizations outside W3F.

Importantly, decentralized funding avenues remain active. The ecosystem maintains direct access to on-chain governance and treasury mechanisms, enabling continued funding innovation and initiatives without centralized intermediation.

Supporting the Next Phase of Polkadot

All of these changes will help to ensure that new products can be built and delivered on the promise of Web3. In turn, this allows the Foundation to recommit itself to making the greatest impact through global advocacy, and disciplined asset allocation to strengthen Web3.

Returning to Its Roots: Web3 Foundation’s Next Phase was originally published in Web3 Foundation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

After years of service, we will be winding down the official support operation. This was not an easy decision. Support has been part of Polkadot since its earliest days, and has played a meaningful role in shaping how users experience the network.

A Foundation Built on Support
Over the years, the team has assisted tens of thousands of users across multiple channels. They’ve answered questions about staking, governance, wallets, and much more. Hundreds of knowledge-based articles were written to help users navigate Polkadot and understand concepts that can feel complex at first encounter. For many, those guides were an initial step into the ecosystem. They provided confidence to participate, propose, vote, stake or build — knowing that a support system was at hand.

Behind the scenes, a small and dedicated group of people worked tirelessly: responding to tickets, updating documentation, testing new features, and coordinating closely with developers. Their work helped bridge protocol innovation into something clear and practical.

A Strategic Shift: From Support to Products
As Polkadot matures, so does its strategy.

As our focus shifts towards enabling better products, and clearer user-facing interfaces across the ecosystem, the aim is to make participation in Polkadot more intuitive and self-serve by design.

In short: rather than scaling a centralized support function, we are prioritizing systems and products that make support less necessary.

Support Doesn’t Disappear, It Decentralizes
End-user support isn’t going away; it’s evolving.

Polkadot has grown into a mature, decentralized ecosystem, with an active, knowledgeable community. Builders, nominators, governance participants, validators, and long-term contributors are highly capable and ready to support fellow Polkadot users. If you need assistance moving forward, please reach out to the community through the Polkadot channels on Discord, Reddit, and Telegram.

What to Expect Next

• The Support contact form will remain open for one more week after this announcement.
• After that, it will be closed, and all remaining tickets will be addressed until further notice.
• The AI chatbot will be decommissioned at the same time.
• The Support page will remain open for the time being, however, its content will not be maintained.

With Gratitude
As Polkadot moves forward, we do so with confidence in the resilience of the ecosystem and gratitude for everyone who has helped build it.

Winding Down the Official Polkadot Support from Web3 Foundation was originally published in Web3 Foundation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In February 2025, the Web3 Foundation introduced Referendum 498, a transformative proposal to allocate 10 million DOT from the W3F treasury to redefine Kusama’s role in the Web3 ecosystem. Originally conceived as Polkadot’s “chaotic canary” and testing ground for bleeding-edge features, Kusama has proven its resilience and capacity for innovation, most notably during the “Spammening” stress test, where it handled 143,000 transactions per second.

Now, as Polkadot matures, Kusama is evolving from a testbed into a peer network — an experiment-central hub where radical ideas in zero-knowledge proofs, proof-of-personhood, and digital art can flourish without constraint.

The referendum outlined the support for bleeding-edge development and community-driven funding over the next 24 months.

With the community’s approval, this vision is now becoming a reality. Today, we’re excited to announce that three major bounties are preparing to launch, each designed to push the boundaries of what’s possible on Kusama.

The Three Kusama Vision Bounties

These bounties embody Kusama’s spirit as a cypherpunks’ playground, a place where privacy technology, humanness, and art converge. Each bounty represents a distinct pillar of innovation, united by a commitment to radical experimentation and fearless building.

🔐 Proof of Personhood

As AI increasingly blurs the boundary between human and machine, ensuring human distinctiveness in digital spaces has become essential. This bounty supports the next generation of applications and protocols built on existing Proof of Personhood primitives — advancing tools and frameworks that preserve privacy, autonomy, and human authenticity online.

We invite builders to extend PoP systems through privacy-preserving mechanisms, interoperable social trust graphs, novel attestations, and other creative architectures that keep digital ecosystems human-led, resilient against sybil attacks, and resistant to AI impersonation.*

🔮 Zero-Knowledge Proofs

At the intersection of trust, privacy, and verification lies zero-knowledge technology. ZK proofs enable parties to prove statements without revealing underlying data. A fundamental breakthrough for privacy-preserving computation, scalable blockchains, and confidential transactions.

The Zero-Knowledge bounty invites architects and pioneers to push the bleeding edge. Among them could be the development of ZK rollups on Kusama, novel proof systems, privacy-preserving applications, and tools that protect humanity’s freedom in an increasingly surveilled world.* This is where the next generation of trustless, private infrastructure will be born.

🎨 Art & Social Experiments

Kusama is more than a blockchain. It’s a canvas for the audacious and a stage for the unprecedented. The Art & Social Experiments bounty recognizes that the most transformative innovations often emerge at the intersection of technology and culture.

This bounty supports artists, creators, and visionaries who embody the cypherpunk ethos through cultural artifacts, explorations of novel on-chain events, experimental DAOs, and social coordination mechanisms that reimagine what blockchains can enable. From generative art to governance experiments to entirely new forms of human organization, this bounty funds the ambitious visions that become tomorrow’s cultural infrastructure.*

How to Engage

These three bounties are launching today and the curators are ready to accept proposals from builders, researchers, artists and dreamers, who want to realize the Kusama Vision as the lab for experiments and innovation, to push the technological boundaries.

Here’s how you can reach out to the curators:

Proof of Personhood Bounty

Art & Social Experiments Bounty

Zero Knowledge Proofs Bounty

The future of Kusama is being written by those brave enough to experiment.

Important Disclaimers

1. *These are examples and do not represent the current scope of funding.
2. Web 3.0 Technologies Foundation (“the Foundation”) does not direct, manage, or control the operations of the Kusama Vision program (“Program”) or the use of any funds the Foundation may provide to the Program through Bounties. All decisions regarding the management and expenditure of Program funds remain decentralized and curator-led. Accordingly, the Foundation accepts no responsibility or liability for the use or misuse of any Program funds, or for the outcomes of the Program, or for any acts, omissions, or decisions made in connection with the Program. The Foundation will not be liable for any damages, losses, or claims arising out of or in connection with participation in the Program.

Kusama Vision Bounties: Activating the Second Age of Radical Experimentation was originally published in Web3 Foundation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Web3 Foundation (W3F) is making a strategic shift away from its traditional open Grants Program and providing streamlined funding for a product-focused vision for Polkadot and its ecosystem.

The Grants Program launched more than six years ago, before Polkadot went live, and played a critical role in bootstrapping the ecosystem. It helped attract thousands of applications and supported the delivery of hundreds of milestones across core infrastructure, tooling, and early ecosystem needs. Over the early years of Polkadot ecosystem development, the W3F-funded open grants program with transparent processes (tracked publicly via platforms like GitHub) proved to be the most effective way to accelerate development, effectively serving as a transparent off-chain funding mechanism. Over the last few years, the ecosystem has obtained significant funding from the Polkadot OpenGov on-chain treasury, sub-treasuries and bounties for development and maintenance of the core protocol infrastructure. Web3 Foundation complemented the on-chain funding efforts through programs like Decentralized Futures, Strategic grants, and Founder grants, focusing on Polkadot’s success. Today, Web3 Foundation is playing an active role through its direct participation in Polkadot OpenGov and is moving away from the open grants model by shifting its efforts to:

1. Targeted Strategic Funding: Rather than requesting broad, open-ended proposals through the grants program, W3F will streamline its funding to initiate and support key initiatives relevant to the core protocol development and the product-centric vision of Polkadot. W3F will continue to steward initiatives like Decentralized JAM, enabling Polkadot’s next major protocol iteration.
2. Support for Ecosystem Funding: W3F will bring its technical expertise into the existing Polkadot governance processes by assisting with rigorous reviews of proposals and keeping track of their milestone deliveries. W3F will actively engage with and support the key ecosystem projects and teams deemed vital for Polkadot’s success by the Polkadot Technical Fellowship, as well as Parity Technologies, which is primarily entrusted with the delivery of the product-centric vision of Polkadot.

Polkadot’s next phase will be shaped by its ability to execute its product-centric vision effectively. To support this, W3F must continue to evolve alongside the Polkadot network and work in full capacity to ensure Polkadot’s long-term success. This strategic shift does not signal a reduction in ecosystem support. Rather, it doubles down on W3F’s commitment to responsible and accountable stewardship, ensuring that the key ecosystem projects and teams seamlessly receive the necessary funding and support.

Aligning Web3 Foundation Grants Program with Polkadot’s Product-centric Vision was originally published in Web3 Foundation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Since its inception in mid-2024, the Decentralized Voices (DV) program’s goal has been to ensure that Polkadot and Kusama governance amplifies the voices of not just the token holders but also the people who actually show up, think through the hard questions, and are willing to be held accountable.

Over time, DV evolved past being a simple delegation program and went through multiple phases of experimentation, iteration, guardrails, and a real cultural shift toward more explicit reasoning and better norms that were challenging yet authentic. People voted. They disagreed. They challenged each other’s reasoning. Sometimes it was awkward. Sometimes it was uncomfortable. Most of the time, it was exactly what governance should look like.

Today, we’re sharing that we will not be running a new cohort of Decentralized Voices after cohort 5 concludes.

It is important to highlight that our decision is not made because of a problem with the DV program. It is definitely not a reflection on the people involved. Instead, our decision reflects a choice about where we focus next. Polkadot is entering a new phase; more product-driven, more execution-heavy, and increasingly centred around primitives like Proof of Personhood and real-world usability. That’s why W3F will be narrowing its focus and reallocating time and operational capacity toward the initiatives we believe are most critical right now.

It’s possible that the DV program could return in the future, but no matter what, its impact will not disappear. … The ecosystem learned from this program, and evolved. That knowledge and evolution will not disappear just because the program ends.

To everyone who participated, applied, debated, and pushed back — thank you. You made this experience matter even more, and that made all the difference. You asked the hard questions. You pushed governance to be sharper, more honest, more real. You showed up when you didn’t have to.

We’re carrying this forward. The spirit of it, the lessons from it & the expectation that governance should be something people actually engage with rather than something that happens to them, that stays. That becomes how we think about the next thing.

Decentralized Voices: Closing This Chapter & Carrying the Lessons Forward was originally published in Web3 Foundation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The next chapter of Web3 Summit unfolds in Berlin this June.

On June 18–19, 2026, the global web3 community will gather once again in Berlin for a new kind of Summit, one designed from the ground up to feel truly web3. While we’re keeping many details under wraps for now (more on that in January), we are excited to share the first look at what’s ahead.

This year’s edition embraces a reimagined format, a refreshed vision, and an entirely new experience for builders, researchers, founders, and creators shaping the next era of the decentralized web.

A New Format, A New Experience

Web3 Summit 2026 explores what it means to design an event native to web3 values, culture, and infrastructure.

Rather than a traditional conference, this year introduces a festival-style format that blends:

• Daytime programming with talks, workshops, unconference sessions, and open collaboration spaces
• Nighttime experiences across art, music, and community gatherings
• A builder-first agenda that puts experimentation, research, and hands-on creation at its center

Web3 Summit has always been the place where decentralized web technologies are debated, challenged, and pushed forward. In 2026, that ethos expands into a more immersive, participatory environment that invites everyone to shape the experience together.

Deeply Web3, by Design

In keeping with our vision to make this the most web3-native Summit yet, we’re exploring new ways for participants to engage, contribute, and interact.

Here’s what you need to know now:

• The 2026 edition embraces new tools, new formats, and new mechanisms for participation
• A new approach to access, collaboration, and on-chain engagement is taking shape
• The experience will evolve over the coming months as we unveil more pieces of the puzzle

More to come. Much more.

Mark Your Calendar

For now, save the dates:

June 18–19, 2026 in Berlin

• Web3 Summit will be a core part of Berlin Blockchain Week, bringing together developers, researchers, founders, and curious minds from across the ecosystem.

Look out for the full announcement, including venue, program themes, and new participation mechanics, dropping in January.

• In the meantime, stay tuned on X and Bluesky, hold the dates, and prepare for a reimagined Web3 Summit.

Web3 Summit 2026. A new way to connect and build.

Please note that details are subject to change as organization of the Summit is finalized.

Web3 Summit Returns to Berlin | June 18–19, 2026 was originally published in Web3 Foundation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This week, we planned to announce the selected nodes for Cohort 4 of Decentralized Nodes. Instead, Web3 Foundation is sharing an update: we will be sunsetting the Decentralized Nodes program, and Cohort 3 will be the final cohort.

Over the past year, Decentralized Nodes aimed to increase the decentralization, resilience, and diversity of Polkadot and Kusama by selecting high-quality, engaged validator operators. We believe we achieved that to a large degree. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t without hiccups, but together with the participating operators we think we made both networks better. So, we want to take a moment to truly thank everyone who applied for and participated in all three (and a half) cohorts! Thank you!

Polkadot evolves and is gearing up to deliver on the true promise of Web3, with products for real people that address real problems and with Proof of Personhood at their core. To support this focus, we are prioritizing resources across initiatives and making hard choices about what we continue to run.

We recognize this change may be disappointing, especially for operators who invested time and resources into their validator operations. We’re grateful for everything you’ve contributed and we’re committed to wrapping cohort 3 cleanly and transparently in January as planned.

Thanks again to everyone who took part in Decentralized Nodes. We’re proud of what this community accomplished, and we’re excited to carry that momentum into what’s next for the ecosystem.

Web3 Foundation is sunsetting the Decentralized Nodes program was originally published in Web3 Foundation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In mythology, elves have long been known as symbols of efficiency, security, and harmony. Polkadot and Kusama also have their own ELVES, a key protocol developed by the Web3 Foundation research team to help both blockchain networks achieve greater security and scalability. This blog post aims to introduce the protocol, explain how it works, and outline the ultimate benefits for users.

The basics

A blockchain protocol usually consists of a network of nodes, typically ranging from hundreds to thousands. Each node downloads and verifies every block of transactions before participating in a majority decision to finalize them. The process keeps the blockchain secure under the assumption that at least two-thirds of the nodes behave correctly. And even if up to about thirty percent of the nodes fail or are hacked, the blockchain remains secure. Building on this premise, the focus shifts to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) set up and, consequently, to the cryptoeconomic security of Polkadot and Kusama.

The scalability dilemma

One of the main drawbacks of securing blockchain as described above is that it limits scalability. The process quickly becomes inefficient since every node must verify each block. Yet, decentralization and security require maintaining a substantial number of nodes. This creates a dilemma, as the system’s scalability ultimately depends on the throughput of the nodes with the lowest capacity.

Polkadot’s architecture saves the day

Parallelism and data partitioning, breaking large datasets into smaller and more manageable pieces, are fundamental to addressing scalability challenges. Web2 relies heavily on data partitioning to handle data volumes and user requests. As a core architecture strategy, it enables systems to serve users globally with low latency and high availability. These same principles are also integral to Polkadot’s architecture, which has been designed for greater scalability from the outset.

In Polkadot’s configuration, validators do not process every transaction unlike in many other blockchains. They neither execute every transaction nor download them all, saving significant bandwidth. This efficiency is achieved through a two-tier design: transactions are submitted to parachains (Layer 2 chains), and parachain blocks are then committed to by the relay chain (Layer 1), where they are ultimately finalized and secured. While BABE enables block production and GRANDPA finalizes the chain at the relay chain level (Layer 1), every validator must still download and execute relay chain blocks. Under these conditions, where fewer than one-third of validators check the validity of each block, the question arises: how can cryptoeconomic security still be ensured?

The role of ELVES

ELVES, a Polkadot protocol, enables the reliable and efficient transfer of parachain blocks from creation to inclusion. It allows parachains to run in parallel while maintaining strong security guarantees, which translates into network scalability without compromising security.

The following illustration shows a schematic of the ELVES protocol in four phases, outlining the process of validating a parachain block B. In this example, a total of ten validators participate. Validators (v1,v2,v3), who are assigned to a parachain, take part in phase 1 and 2, while all validators (v1,…,v10) participate in phase 3 and 4.

• Phase 1. The three validators (v1,v2, v3) assigned to the parachain receive the block.
• Phase 2. These validators check the validity of the received parachain block and decide whether to back it (i.e., guarantee its validity). In the image, validators v1 and v2 decide to back block B.
• Phase 3. The block is then split (erasure-coded) into “pieces”, which are then sent to all validators. Each validator acknowledges the pieces they receive. This ensures that all validators have access to the block so that they can later double-check its validity. At this stage, availability is guaranteed.
• Phase 4 ensures that the parachain validators from Phase 1 have not misbehaved. A randomly selected subset of all validators, such as v5, v8, v10 in the image and who in the previous phase received the block pieces, reconstructs the block, verifies its validity, and approves the backing (the guarantee given in Phase 2 by parachain validators, for instance v1 and v2). At this stage, validity is guaranteed.

While three validators are assigned to each parachain in this example, in reality, the total number of validators is much higher, approximately 600 on Polkadot and 1,000 on Kusama.

Developed by the Web3 Foundation, the ELVES protocol is a scaling solution that balances security, decentralization, and scalability, making attacks on Polkadot extremely expensive in expectation. It also reduces computational load on validators while maintaining a high level of security.

How does ELVES reduce computing power for validators?

ELVES reduces the computing power by letting a small subset of nodes validate each block. Selecting this random subset of sufficient size and defining how it determines block validity are the first steps toward reducing overall computational demand.

If the chosen subset contains a majority of honest parties, a simple vote could validate the block. Yet, ensuring that a random subset includes a majority of honest nodes requires the subset to be quite large. Concrete calculations show that such a random subset would still need several hundred nodes, making it expensive.

ELVES improves efficiency by requiring all nodes in the random committee to approve a validated block. As a result, the presence of even a single honest node in the subset is enough to ensure security. Moreover, ELVES guarantees, with sufficient probability, that the initial random subset includes an honest node. It also relies on economic security, as nodes must provide collateral, putting real “skin in the game.”

The process begins by selecting a very small initial random subset. If some committee members fail to show up, additional members are gradually added. And if enough members still do not participate, the entire set eventually validates the block. Since multiple blocks can be validated in parallel and an adversary can only expand a few subsets at a time, most blocks end up with validating subsets of relatively small size. This mechanism ensures that if any contradiction arises within a validating subset, the corrupted node loses its deposit.

On average, this approach requires only about 80 nodes, a number that can be even smaller in optimistic cases, such as when the system is not under attack. As a result, using ELVES saves more than 90% of computing power on average compared to having all validators check every block. In some cases, the savings reach up to 97%.

How is ELVES deployed?

ELVES has been deployed on Polkadot and Kusama since 2020–2021. More recently, the Web3 Foundation team demonstrated its security in a dedicated paper. The study shows that the protocol remains secure if, for each parachain block, 25 validators are initially selected as approval checkers, resulting in about 17 honest validators in expectation. This holds because, at the time when parachain validators back a block, it is not yet known which validators will be randomly chosen, meaning the adversary cannot predict how many approval checkers will be honest. The selection of validators for Phase 3 approvals must occur after parachain validators have backed the block. Furthermore, ELVES adjusts the number of validators required for approval when nodes are unavailable, ensuring both scalability and strong resilience for Polkadot.

ELVES contribution to Polkadot’s economic resilience

Due to the design of the ELVES protocol, any economic attack on Polkadot is extremely expensive, as for an attack to occur, the attacker must commit to malicious behavior, such as backing an invalid block. This should happen even before knowing which validators will be randomly selected to verify their actions. Since most validators are presumably honest, the likelihood that no honest node detects the attack is virtually zero. The expected value of an attack, defined as its potential payoff times its probability of success, is therefore negligible.

While the potential gains from an attack could reach millions of dollars, the odds of going undetected are close to zero. This makes such an attempt economically irrational since the attack would need to be carried out many times to have any chance of success. In theory, large-scale attacks on consensus, such as those requiring control of one-third of all validators, would be cheaper. Yet in practice, the cost of acquiring and maintaining that level of control makes them virtually impossible. If an attacker is caught, they are slashed, losing all their staked funds and the right to earn future rewards.

What does this mean for users?

ELVES enables scalability for both Kusama and Polkadot, allowing the networks to achieve at least 140,000 transactions per second while using less than a quarter of their total capacity. These figures are not theoretical estimates or results from testnet experiments. The Spammening experiment, conducted on a production network at the end of 2024, provides solid evidence of these real throughput results.

Polkadot’s scalability and decentralization, achieved in part through ELVES, translate into direct benefits for users. Here are a few:

• Lower risk of high transaction costs during periods of heavy network traffic, a difficulty users have faced on other blockchains like Ethereum.
• Support for high-throughput applications, such as gaming platforms. Mythical Games is a clear example of Polkadot’s realisation: thanks to Polkadot, players and developers successfully migrate their tokens from Ethereum to Mythos.
• Room for growth, as Polkadot’s architecture allows for more parachains and projects, increasing usage diversity across the network.
• Enhanced security through more decentralization, as reducing the cost of becoming a Polkadot validator leads to increased decentralization, which in turn ensures stronger protection for users.

Like the elves of legend who work, protect, and preserve balance tirelessly behind the scenes, Polkadot’s ELVES operates quietly, yet powerfully to ensure security and scalability,

Aside from this blog post, the Web3 Foundation research team has also created a video that gives a quick and clear explanation of ELVES. Enjoy!

ELVES: the fairy dust that makes Polkadot scalable was originally published in Web3 Foundation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Web3 Foundation announced its active participation in OpenGov in October and has also issued new grant guidelines. The current mandate for the technical grants evaluation team at the Web3 Foundation is to leverage their years of experience evaluating grant applications across all categories of the ecosystem work in the realm of OpenGov and provide public feedback, enabling our community to make informed decisions on Treasury allocation.

We recognize that OpenGov supports a wide range of proposals, and the role of the foundation is to help identify credible, value-aligned proposals and to make our criteria and posture as clear as possible for proposers.

What are we looking for?

Whether technical or non-technical, proposals submitted to OpenGov will need to demonstrate:

• Cost-effectiveness: W3F invites all entities planning to submit a funding request to OpenGov to engage early during the discussion phase on the governance platforms and ratify the costs for the deliverables. This applies equally to technical infrastructure work, community initiatives, research efforts, market development programs and others. Budget discipline is the clearest signal that a proposer has thought through what they’re committing to. We expect itemized costs, vendor quotes where applicable and transparent benchmarking against comparable work. Early engagement with our team allows proposers to validate that their spending reflects both frugality and quality. More importantly, it demonstrates respect for community capital. It signals that proposers understand this is not casual expenditure, it is stewardship of a shared, finite resource.
• Expertise: Credibility matters. W3F will review the capabilities of the proposer and use the experience and insights from its open and strategic grant evaluations framework to attest to the credibility of the proposing entity in executing the deliverables. For technical work, this means assessing architecture and integration pathways. For community initiatives, this means evaluating track record in community engagement and event management. For research, this means examining methodology and relevant prior publication. For market development, this means assessing relevant market experience and realistic market understanding. In all cases, we require verified proposer identity and credible evidence that the team can execute as promised.
• Accountability: We would like to ensure accountability on-chain through a periodic review process of accepted proposals. OpenGov offers automatic milestone-based payouts for proposals. In case the deliverables are not consistently met, it is possible for the community to stop future payouts through an OpenGov vote. This framework applies across all proposal types, and KPIs can all be structured with clear on-chain verification and logic. We strongly encourage proposers to lock their scope and budget in immutable form via IPFS, Git, or on-chain hashes so that the community can verify what was promised and measure whether it was delivered.

Beyond these three core dimensions, we evaluate proposals against a fundamental question: does this create genuine ecosystem value, and is Treasury funding the appropriate mechanism?

We prioritize proposals with ecosystem-level impact over those that primarily benefit a single team or narrow constituency. We ask: would the ecosystem be substantially worse off if this work were not funded?

By demanding that, we signal that OpenGov is a place where quality is expected, where resources are respected, where coherence matters. We aim to attract only builders who care about those principles, in order to cultivate an ecosystem that is intentional and worthy of the technology we have created.

Minimum Standards for All Proposals:

To be considered for an Aye from the W3F, proposals must meet the following standards:

1. On-chain verified proposer identity
2. Immutable scope and budget. Final scope and budget locked via IPFS, Git tags, or on-chain hashes, with these hashes referenced in the referendum text.
3. Concrete, measurable deliverables. Specific outputs with success criteria. “Increase developer engagement” is vague; “onboard 50 new developers with completed tutorials by Q2 2026” is concrete.
4. Itemized, benchmarked budget, with every line item justified. Vendor quotes or market comparables provided for material spends. No lump sums that obscure cost assumptions.
5. Milestone-gated disbursement. Structured funding to be released in tranches tied to demonstrated completion of deliverables.
6. Public discussion lead-time. Generally, at least 14 days of community discussion before referendum submissions,
7. Responsiveness to community feedback. Proposals should incorporate reasonable refinements based on community input and the ability to receive input on an ongoing basis. Significant scope or budget changes post-discussion must trigger re-hashing and community re-engagement.

(Additionally, we highly encourage proposers to adopt open-source licenses for project code, plan for independent security audits when relevant, and describe how the project will be sustained after the treasury funding ends. While these steps are not strict requirements, they strengthen a proposal’s credibility.)

Engagement & Support:

We encourage proposers to contact gov@web3.foundation early in the proposal development process. Our team can help with:

• Benchmarking costs against comparable work
• Clarifying deliverables and success metrics
• Structuring milestone-based disbursement
• Thinking through integration pathways or market strategy depending on proposal type
• Understanding how to present your work for community deliberation

Engagement with W3F is not a prerequisite for proposal success, but following these guidelines is the minimum prerequisite for W3F to consider voting in favour.

Throughout this process, W3F strives to remain an impartial and transparent participant in OpenGov. We view ourselves as one stakeholder among many in the Polkadot ecosystem, and our aim is to support the community in making well-informed decisions. By sharing these guidelines and our reasoning openly, we hope to build greater confidence in how treasury funds are allocated and encourage proposers to meet a high standard.

W3F OpenGov Proposal Voting Guidelines was originally published in Web3 Foundation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Applications for Cohort 4 are now open. The application period ends on November 23. Full details and the application form are available on the Decentralized Nodes website.

New Guidelines and Application Resources

Check the “Decentralized Nodes Processes & Rules” carefully. For the fourth cohort, changes to the selection process have been implemented based on feedback. These changes aim to increase diversity, support decentralization, and include as many operators as possible.

Based on user feedback, a new document has been published to simplify and clarify the application process. It is recommended to review the document before applying. The guide, “How to submit a good application,” contains relevant information on the technical and operational aspects of application evaluation, among other details.

Please make sure to submit your application before November 23, as this period ends soon! The period is shorter than usual to give the team more time to properly evaluate all the applications, especially with the holiday season approaching.

The most important changes that you will observe in Cohort 4:

• Apply with up to two nodes on Polkadot and up to four nodes on Kusama
• The term is increased to five months
• Flat minimum self-stake of 10,000 DOT on Polkadot and 250 KSM on Kusama for all nodes
• Set your reward destination freely to ‘Stash’ or ‘Staked’ without affecting your self-stake.
• Get a returning participant bonus: not selected participants of previous cohorts will receive additional points
• Updated “preferred setups page” to put more focus on diversity within the program

Important dates:

Applications close: November 23 at 23:59 CET
Selection announcement: In the week of Dec 15–19
Cohort launch: Jan 13, 2026

Applications are open for the Fourth Cohort of Decentralized Nodes was originally published in Web3 Foundation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.