Polkadot Updates

🔴 ⭕️ Relay Chain

total supply - 1.1466b DOT || staking - 53.9% || parachains - 8.6% (~99m DOT)

• The Shell parachain was upgraded to Statemint. However, there are current restrictions on its usage (e.g., users cannot teleport DOT from the relay chain, and permissionless asset creation is not yet permitted). See the blog post for details.
• As scheduled by Referendum 39, the 2nd batch of parachain slot auctions has started.

🔴 🏛 Governance

• Polkadot India, a pan India community of Substrate developers, published a proposal for review: the team aims to educate the Indian blockchain community about Polkadot, and Indian developers about Substrate. They have created two signature events: DotFriday (a guest webinar series) and Substrate Saturdays (a bootcamp series) that are already running. The team is requesting funding for the next 9 events—context, milestones and budget can be found in the proposal. 
• MIDL.DEV, the cloud infrastructure solutions team for substrate-based projects, published a treasury proposal for discussion to cover maintenance of polkashots.io: A functioning infrastructure providing usable blockchain database snapshots for the Polkadot network to the benefit of node operators. Budget, tasks and usage metrics can be found in the proposal publication.
• Irina Karagyaur published a proposal to celebrate the Polkadot's Ambassador Programme and its contributions to the ecosystem: The Badges for Polkadot Ambassadors for PolkaOscar. This proposal aims to award each ambassador for the relevant work done which has made Polkadot a success. Budget and tasks to complete can be found on the post.

Kusama Updates ₑₓₚₑcₜ cₕₐₒₛ

🦅 ⭕️ Relay Chain

total supply - ~11.8mil KSM || staking - 41.6% || parachains - 24%

• Sakura won the 18th slot auction while Crust Shadow won the 19th.

🦅 🏛 Governance

• There is a post seeking feedback for Nomi, a proposed tool for helping nominators select validators. 
• BrightTreasury app is now operational and the team is ready to submit their maintenance proposal to the Kusama treasury. The team published a proposal on their app for discussion that aims to cover maintenance from Jan to March 2022.
• Referendum 162, to unbrick Picasso through a regenesis, is failing by a wide margin. This is mainly because it’s been requested that the referendum be rejected as the problem has been solved with Referendum 161.

⛓ Connected Parachains, dApps, and others

projects connected to the DOT and KSM relay chains

• Attarius Network announced a gaming partnership with BOTLabs GmbH, developer of KILT protocol.
• SubQuery released a post analysing the numbers behind the use of the Polkadot Gift feature.
• SubQuery launched a $500,000 grants program to promote Polkadot ecosystem growth.
• KILT released An Introduction to Governance on KILT.
• Basilisk released a post titled Confessions of a Snek, wherein the project called itself out for its tardiness and gave some updates.
• Karura hosted a community call to introduce a new team building on its parachain.

🔗 Candidate Parachains, dApps, and others

projects that are not yet connected to the DOT and KSM relay chains

• Phala released their slot auction strategy for Polkadot.
• Cere Network announced a partnership with RAI Finance.
• Quantastamp conducted a security audit of Astar Network.
• SORA released a development update.
• Mural by Compossable Finance announced the integration of TreasureDAO, bringing cross-layer NFT transferral capabilities to their well-established NFT marketplace and metaverse ecosystem.
• Parity Technologies and Energy Web partner to launch new Energy Web Consortia Relay Chain.

🌎 Community & Ecosystem

• If you missed the Polkadot Parachain Launch Party, you can watch a recording here.
• The Substrate Stackexchange area has received enough commitments to be created. The launch is expected soon.
• Jonas Gehrlein, researcher at Web3 Foundation, has published an analysis of the first five parachain auctions on Polkadot. 
• Polkadot: Behind the Code, Episode 3: The Ecosystem has been released.

🌠 NFT Review

A weekly newsletter keeping up with the evolution of NFTs in the Dotsama ecosystem.

• RMRK partnered with Robonomics.
• RMRK announced the RMRK Yuletide Giveback Festival

Read these and more

👷‍♂️ Jobs in Web 3.0

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• RMRK.app, home of the most advanced NFTs in the world, is looking for, Solidity, React, and Rust developers. Get in touch!

That's it for this week - I hope this was as useful for you to read as it was for us to write!

Many thanks to Bill Laboon for his daily digest—which helps us not miss some important updates—and Raul Romanutti for helping us ensure that the governance news is accurate.

DotLeap is put together by Bruno Škvorc and gbaci.

Got any links for Bruno for the next edition? Find Bruno on Riot at @bruno:web3.foundation, on Twitter, or via email at [email protected].