Polkadot founder Gavin Wood released the initial Jam specification in a gray paper, discussing the content of future proposals for Polkadot. The gray paper defines Jam, which integrates Polkadot and Ethereum elements, provides a globally permissionless object environment, combines secure off-chain computing, and can run in parallel on a scalable node network. Jam introduces a decentralized hybrid system, builds smart contract functionality, and is mainly driven by the underlying architecture of Polkadot. Jam is permissionless, allowing anyone to deploy code as a service and pay for resources by purchasing and allocating core-time to guide code execution.

Blockchain technology has ushered in a new era of innovative governance mechanisms for decision-making. It shifts power from small, centralized groups to a broader community, democratizing and monetizing voting power. This transformation significantly boosts participation, enhances transparency, and secures the decision-making process within the community.

It was announced that the cross-chain bridge between Polkadot and Kusama has gone live. The GRANDPA light client running on BridgeHub for both Polkadot and Kusama has been initialized, and is currently being synchronised in real-time by an unlicensed relay operated by Parity. The consensus proof logic (light client), parallel chain header proof logic, and message proof logic all run on the in-chain when BridgeHub is running, and are exclusively controlled by Polkadot/Kusama governance.

According to DotLake data, as of the end of March, Polkadot has accumulated over 600,000 active addresses on the chain. Out of 605,000 addresses, more than 41% (i.e. 248,000) are attributed to the cross-chain smart contract platform Moonbeam, while 191,000 addresses are created directly on Polkadot. The number of independent accounts with non-zero balances is also increasing, from 5.53 million at the end of February to 5.59 million at the end of March.

Polkadot ecological network Darwinia Network stated in a post on X platform that the community is currently voting on the 9th referendum "PINK Airdrop Plan". There is 1 day and 13 hours left until the end of the vote, and the current approval rate is 100%.

The Kusama network of Polkadot announced the activation of a new consensus protocol called Beefy. The protocol aims to achieve "seamless verification of blockchain on Ethereum and other EVM-compatible networks". The team stated that a key feature is the introduction of two innovative bridges: Snowbridge, a public goods bridge that directly connects Kusama and Ethereum to enhance information and transaction flow, and Hyperbridge, which provides secure interoperability with Ethereum L2 networks and emerging chains.

Messari released the Polkadot 2023 Q4 status report. Among them: the monthly active addresses of parallel chains increased by 93% compared to the previous month, from 104,000 to 200,000. The XCM transfer volume increased by 150% compared to the previous month, reaching a historical high of 133,000 transactions. As of the end of the year, the total number of active XCM channels reached 203, and it will nearly double by 2023. As of December, Polkadot has 800 full-time developers and a total of 2,100 developers. According to Electric Capital's data, Polkadot ranks among the top three cryptocurrency ecosystems in terms of developer rankings. In addition, the circulating market value of DOT increased by 111% compared to the previous month to US$8.38 billion. The growth in the fourth quarter led to a year-on-year increase of 94%, making it one of the top 15 cryptocurrency projects in terms of market value.

Polkadot (DOT) is a distributed blockchain computing platform that acts as a base layer for other sovereign blockchains, called parachains, for validation and shared security. Polkadot was built using Substrate, a blockchain developmental framework. Furthermore, Polkadot’s base layer is known as the Relay Chain, which utilizes a Nominated Proof-of-Stake (NPoS) consensus mechanism, and its state machine is compiled to WebAssembly (Wasm).

Polkadot officially stated on social media that according to the 2023 Developer Report released by Electric Capital, Polkadot developers submitted a total of 22,232,604 lines of original code throughout 2023. Developer contributions accounted for 10.5% of all submitted code in the Web3 field, with the second highest number of full-time developers, only after Ethereum, reaching 792.

As the (northern hemisphere) nights have drawn in and soma.fm’s Christmas Lounge finds its rightful place on my household radio, we once again find ourselves at the time of the year where I write my annual diary entry on behalf of Polkadot. With Covid now largely consigned to the collective memory of a generation, we see a global return to normalcy and resurgence of (in-person) events with it. Conflict and AI present some of the most prominent themes of the news cycle this year with some of the more inquisitive wondering how, along with blockchain, the world might be changed with them. This year it is also a special anniversary for me; as I write this, exactly 10 years ago I wrote the first lines of crypto-economic code in my life. So, what did 2023 bring?

Polkadot founder Gavin Wood outlined the technology development blueprint for 2024 in his annual review. Wood pointed out that the new year will be very busy for Polkadot, with four important infrastructure projects expected, including Agile Coretime, On-Demand Parachains, Ethereum Snowbridge, and Kusama bridging. In addition, Elastic Scaling technology is expected to emerge in 2024 as the fifth major technological breakthrough.

On December 24th, according to market data, Polkadot's ecosystem tokens experienced a general rise, including:<br>MOVR rose by 124.32% in 24 hours, with a current price of $20.8;&nbsp;<br>ACA rose by 38.56% in 24 hours, with a current price of $0.113;<br>KSM rose by 20.74% in 24 hours, with a current price of $40.22;<br>GLMR rose by 38.29% in 24 hours, with a current price of $0.512;<br>DOT rose by 9.04% in 24 hours, with a current price of $8.56.

On December 22nd, Polkadot officially reviewed its development status in 2023 and plans to implement asynchronous support, flexible Coretime, and minimum Relay in 2024. In the first quarter of next year, Polkadot will deploy the cross-chain bridge Snowbridge between Polkadot and Ethereum.

The market shows that DOT has broken through $8 and is now trading at $8.01, with an intraday increase of 7.09%. The market is fluctuating greatly, so please be prepared for risk control.

The market shows that DOT has broken through $7 and is currently trading at $7.01, with a daily increase of 1.01%. The market is volatile, so please manage your risks.

Fabian Gompf, the new CEO of Polkadot development agency Web3 Foundation, said in an interview that Polkadot is about to undergo a major transformation. Polkadot will abandon the slot auction for parallel chains and instead adopt a new mechanism that allows application developers to rent block space as needed.

According to PolkaWorld, the Polkadot OpenGov Proposal #231 proposes to use the HydraDX decentralized exchange in the Polkadot ecosystem to regularly convert a portion of the treasury's DOT holdings into USDT, accumulating USDT to be used for paying Technical Fellowship members.

Acala Network, a DeFi protocol within the Polkadot ecosystem, has released an updated Exodus roadmap. As of now, the ACA token staking rate has reached 13.55%, and the LDOT protocol DOT staking amount has exceeded 5 million. The DOT staked through the liquidity incentive platform Euphrates is about to exceed 5.1 million. In addition, the next ACA token burn will take place in 16 days, and it is expected that over 142,000 ACA tokens will be burned.

Acala, the DeFi protocol of Polkadot's ecosystem, has announced progress updates on Acala 2.0 roadmap, as follows: 1. ACA staking function has been launched; 2. 222,280 ACA tokens have been burned, and the next token burn will take place in 26 days; 3. ACA-USDC pool has been launched; 4. Unilateral DOT and LCDOT staking has been launched on the liquidity incentive platform Euphrates; 5. Currently, 4.2 million DOT have been staked through the Euphrates platform.

On October 25th, PolkaWorld announced on the X platform that the ideal staking rate for DOT has increased from 51% to 59%. It is expected that the staking reward for DOT will decrease by about 7% (from 1 DOT to 0.93 DOT). In addition, PolkaWorld stated that this is to leave enough space for the unlocked DOT for leasing 6-13 crowd loans, ensuring that the reward will not decrease significantly. If the DOT for crowd loans is staked at the previous ideal rate of 51%, the reward will decrease significantly. Setting the ideal rate to 59% provides a buffer for these additional DOT, avoiding a sharp decrease in rewards before the staking rate exceeds 59%.