2025 May Polkadot OpenGov Report
Polkadot Community Foundation
The Polkadot Community Foundation (PCF) is a Cayman Islands entity established last year to serve as a legal wrapper for the DAO. It allows the DAO to interact with off-chain entities and operate within traditional legal frameworks.
Since then, the PCF has been under criticism for its low efficiency as well as high costs and paperwork. But meanwhile, it has also been utilized in several initiatives, including the Polkadot mobile app, the Marketing Bounty, and the Social Media Editorial Board. It signed agreements and ran campaigns with external parties such as Ledger, and currently manages IP rights for the Polkadot App.
A new proposal aims to extend PCF’s operational mandate for another year. The community members rightfully criticize the apparent inefficiencies. However, if this extension fails, it could lead to additional legal complications and further unnecessary expenses, especially regarding the transfer of IP rights for the Polkadot app, which itself is the subject of an active proposal for extension of its development efforts through PCF. On top of it, there is no clear alternative destination for those rights if PCF is not renewed.
Rather than letting PCF lapse, the path forward is to improve it. The PCF has five director seats. Two of these are intended to be appointed by OpenGov. The remaining three can also be appointed, but must reside in the Cayman Islands. At present, the existing directors are not engaged with the ecosystem, and the management of the foundation goes through several bureaucratic layers.
This is not sustainable. A foundation representing the DAO must be more engaged with the network it serves. That's why it's crucial to fill the remaining positions with OpenGov and improve the current situation without burning down the efforts without a clear alternative path forward.
More information about how to utilize PCF can be found on the Polkadot wiki page or directly in the bylaws document.
OpenGov HR
Over the past month, we have hosted several spaces and published forum posts highlighting the need for a basic human resources function within OpenGov.
Polkadot needs a mechanism to manage talent across the ecosystem. This includes advertising open positions, supporting job listings, and onboarding new people, as well as maintaining an overview of who is working where. It also includes providing ongoing support to people working under DAO-funded departments and initiatives.
The situation with the appointment of PCF directors is a good example of the problem. The network lacks the official capacity to take on this task and run the operation of finding and presenting candidates. We also continue to observe the trend of the same individuals taking up multiple roles across different bounties and initiatives, often citing a lack of available talent. A lightweight HR function would help solve this issue by identifying candidates, matching them with open roles, and helping reduce excessive workload & responsibility concentration.
An HR coordinator should not be a gatekeeper but a facilitator, mapping existing roles, helping projects recruit, and supporting the people working on behalf of OpenGov. The post is live on Polkadot Forum and up for discussion.
Department Updates
Housekeeping
A new referendum proposes a round of bounty maintenance, covering both curator reinstatements and the closure of inactive bounties.
Several active bounties lost their curators after expiration deadlines were missed. This created an opening for anonymous accounts to manually remove curators with bad-faith remarks, disrupting ongoing work. The proposal restores the original curators for three affected bounties: the Open Source Developer Grants, Games Bounty, and Polkadot Pioneers Prize.
The same proposal also closes a set of inactive or unfunded bounties to reduce clutter.
While curator expiry can be a useful signal of activity, the current setup is easy to exploit. A planned runtime upgrade will allow expiry to be disabled entirely and prevent similar issues from happening in the future.
Marketing Bounty Extension
A new six-month budget has been proposed by the Marketing Bounty. In the new proposal, the number of curators has increased to seven with the addition of Magenta Labs and Scytale Digital. This effectively changes the multisig structure to 4/7 from the previous 3/5. While the larger curator set may slow down operations, it introduces much needed oversight and diversity of input.
Transparency remains essential. It does not guarantee accountability, but it is a necessary precondition. Regular updates, reporting, or community communication is very important not only for accountability, but also for long term resilience of the network. In this sense, The Marketing Bounty has a big responsibility as the largest department in terms of spending and exposure. Another concern that needs to be adressed is the increasing role overlaps within the bounty. Clearer boundaries are needed to avoid future conflicts and maintain accountability.
Despite these concerns, the overall structure is still a step in the right direction. More detailed feedback on the bounty operations can be found in our April Report.
Notable Mentions
The Liquidity Campaign proposal by Hydration passed with strong support after the team committed to returning 3m DOT to the treasury. According to public announcements, both the Web3 Foundation and Parity will be more actively involved in the process moving forward. It also appears that more inclusive and collaborative liquidity incentive campaigns are being planned.
Robonomics’ smart home device proposal sparked a brief debate around the responsibilities of Decentralized Voices (DVs), particularly regarding vote changes during the confirmation period. The issue arose when Jam Implementers DAO switched their vote just as the proposal entered confirmation. This caused the confirmation attempt to fail and return to discussion. Had the timing been later, the switch could have killed the proposal entirely. There is no rule prohibiting vote changes during confirmation, but it is generally considered good practice for DVs to maintain their stance during that phase to allow proposers a fair chance to address concerns. The proposal in question ultimately passed.
Polkadot Sales Hub A new resource center has been launched by So So Scaled to support Polkadot’s business development efforts. Originally funded about nine months ago, the website compiles BD facing materials, pitch decks, and ecosystem stats in one place and aims to provide a standardized starting point for external outreach and partnership discussions.