Web3 Foundation launches $65 million prize pool for Polkadot JAM upgrade
On May 27, Polkadot’s founder, Gavin Wood, revealed that the project’s community had ratified the proposed upgrade with a near-unanimous governance vote.
JAM Implementers’ Prize
The Foundation said its initiative aims to foster innovation and enhance the Polkadot ecosystem through diverse implementations of the JAM protocol, thereby increasing the network resilience.
The prize encourages the creation of JAM implementations in various programming languages, including OCaml, Go, and Zig.
To qualify, participants must meet specific milestones such as importing and producing blocks, achieving performance standards on Kusama and Polkadot, and passing security audits.
The initiative is designed to ensure the development of a decentralized network capable of handling various computational tasks.
Web3 Foundation said:
“JAM is an evolutionary, minimalist blockchain protocol designed to enhance data management and interoperability within the network. It will ensure that Polkadot continues to provide the leading standard when it comes to the security, flexibility, and scalability of blockspace.”
Furthermore, the upgrade introduces revolutionary scalability to the consensus layer, previously achievable only through rollups. This innovation removes the need for developers to choose between appchains and smart contracts.
The foundation said that JAM provides a versatile environment for ensuring Layer 2 (L2) scalability without relying on roll-up solutions and meeting the diverse needs of any application. It added that the strong community support for JAM indicates a readiness to embrace decentralized innovation while maintaining high standards.
Although the timeline for the upgrade is currently unknown, the implementation will proceed through five steps, including importation, authoring, speed checks, and security audits.
Disclaimer: CryptoSlate has received a grant from the Polkadot Foundation to produce content about the Polkadot ecosystem. While the Foundation supports our coverage, we maintain full editorial independence and control over the content we publish.
