Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author | Azuma (@azuma.eth)

Today, the news about Polkadot's "half-year expenditure of $87 million, with the treasury only enough to last another 2 years" has sparked widespread discussion within the community.

As community emotions intensify, many Asian background projects, including Manta Network, DIN (formerly Web3 Go), Oneblock+, have successively come forward, pointing out serious political infighting and discrimination within the Polkadot ecosystem. Asian projects have long been subjected to unfair treatment, while high-value proposals from other regions easily pass, indirectly leading to the forced outflow of many high-quality projects.

Below is the compilation made by Odaily based on the statements from various parties (including Odaily's own experience in applying for Polkadot funding proposals).

Manta Network: Polkadot is toxic, run fast!

At 17:18 today, Victor Ji, co-founder of Manta Network, posted on X, saying:

As the founder of the project with the largest TVL and market cap/fully diluted value (excluding DOT) in the former Polkadot ecosystem, I have to say that we really don't want to have any more contact with the Polkadot ecosystem and its team. This ecosystem is highly toxic and has no real value for Web3, it doesn't care about users or adoption at all. We are too busy to reveal the many discriminatory facts we Asian founders have experienced in this ecosystem (which is a shared feeling among all Asian founders).

The Polkadot team has insufficient capacity and has not truly achieved decentralization. If they are willing to make some meaningful efforts to support ecosystem builders, we will not be disappointed as we are now. Many community members have asked us about the roadmap for our Atlantic (Polkadot parachain) project, and what I want to say is that there is no roadmap. We are now completely focused on Manta Pacific because the entire Polkadot ecosystem is basically dead.

Regarding the accusation of discrimination against Asian developers by the Polkadot team, you can compare the amount of funding obtained by European/American projects compared to Asian projects to understand.

DIN (formerly Web3 Go): The deeper the love, the greater the disappointment

Today at 18:09, DIN (formerly known as Web3 Go, a Polkadot ecosystem data analysis platform) founder Harold posted on X, saying:

Agree with Victor Ji, co-founder of Manta Network, that it is quite difficult for an Asian-led project to build within the Polkadot ecosystem.

In the Polkadot ecosystem, you need to face and solve many additional issues, such as politics, relationships, and small circles. I remember the Web3 event held in Hong Kong in 2023. Polkadot did not hold any official events at that time, so I applied for a $10,000 grant on behalf of the community. The application process was too painful, and the reporting requirements were too cumbersome. I don't want to go through it again. But at the same time, I saw many projects from Europe and the United States easily obtaining grants of tens of thousands or even millions of dollars, which is very unfair.

As a result, although the technology and vision of the Polkadot ecosystem are still impressive, we are gradually moving away from Polkadot.

The deeper the love, the harsher the criticism.

PolkaWorld: Drive away scammers who clip coupons

At 21:14 today, PolkaWorld, the Chinese community of Polkadot, posted on X.

PolkaWorld, as a DV (governance voting delegate) in the first half of the year, opposed most of the so-called proposals to increase Polkadot's exposure. Polkadot does not currently lack so-called advertising exposure, and money should not be spent on advertising exposure without any conversion. Any advertising and exposure should be based on the product, otherwise it is ineffective exposure and ineffective spending.

PolkaWorld added that there is a fundamental issue in the Polkadot ecosystem that has not been resolved—how to counteract Whales? Especially when the intentions of the Whales do not align with the interests of the entire community, what can the community do... Why can a proposal worth millions of dollars, without any detailed explanation, transparent budget, and financial reports, still be passed despite strong opposition from the community? Why should a proposal requesting tens of thousands of dollars, which would be very helpful to the community, face opposition worth tens of millions? In the past half year, how many controversial proposals have been approved on Polkadot? Currently, what the Polkadot community needs most is: 1. Empowering teams that have already built great products, providing them with liquidity incentives to attract users to use these great products; 2. Continuously nurturing and discovering new teams, new products, and new applications; 3. Only when a user-friendly unicorn application emerges, can it attract a large number of users to the Polkadot ecosystem and stay in the Polkadot ecosystem.

Finally, we want to appeal to all DOT holders. The Polkadot community should no longer support more advertising exposure proposals, including any sports event partnerships/sponsorships, advertising placements, or even sponsoring concerts? ? Co-operate with KOL? ? And so on, this is meaningless! Let's focus on cultivating strong ecological applications and spend money on the exposure of these products!

Hold on DOT holders, we can win! The premise is to get rid of those scammers who clip coupons first!

Oneblock+: Do not understand Polkadot's refusal to give developers excessive rewards

Today at 21:23, the Polkadot community and DV Oneblock+ posted on X, saying:

Recently, I applied for two Polkadot hackathon proposals in the Asia-Pacific region in 2024 on OpenGov. I hope to bring the Polkadot hackathon to Singapore and Bangkok in the second half of 2024, and the fund allocation will be used for hosting, prizes, and organizing the Polkadot hackathon in Singapore and Bangkok in 2024. Oneblock+ claims that its costs are transparent: 30% for operational expenses and 70% as rewards for winning teams.

However, the proposal was opposed by many node representatives and large investors of DOT, because they considered the bonus offered to the winning development team was too high. The fact is that the proposal fee of Oneblock+ is lower than that of other hackathon organizers, and the high bonus is aimed at attracting more developers to join the Polkadot ecosystem and continue development, rather than wasting money on event organization.

As the sole representative of Polkadot DV in China, Oneblock+ does not refuse proposals on the grounds of 'giving developers too high rewards.' Hackathon prizes for Solana, Ton, etc. have exceeded 500,000 US dollars.

Odaily personal experience

In addition to the voices of many institutions mentioned above, Odaily itself has also experienced setbacks in the Polkadot ecological proposal.

As one of the few Chinese media outlets that have been following and reporting on the Polkadot ecosystem for a long time and have organized multiple events, in February this year, we submitted a proposal on market promotion to the Polkadot governance system OpenGov based on their needs after communicating with the Polkadot team. The proposal outlined Odaily's long-term proactive coverage and support for Polkadot, as well as future content and activity support plans. The requested amount was 10458 DOT, which was approximately 80,000 US dollars at the time (now fallen to 64,000 US dollars).

The proposal has received support from 28.3 million DOT votes, mainly from the Chinese community. The Polkadot Chinese community also described Odaily's many years of contribution on its website, but as the voting deadline approached, a large number of opposing votes appeared, slightly exceeding the supporting votes (over 32 million opposing).

Insiders in the community revealed that most of those who voted against were 'large investors and nodes' on the European side who 'do not understand the Chinese community'. We tried to communicate with the officials but did not receive any feedback, and ultimately we had to let it go.

With the recent disclosure of Polkadot's financial report, we only see that the Polkadot treasury is more willing to spend $53,000 on a moving logo on CoinGecko (or it seems to spend more on CoinMarketCap); spend $200,000 to spray an icon on a private plane in Europe to enhance Polkadot's exposure to high net worth individuals; spend $1.6 million to organize a conference for croissant lovers; sponsor various sports activities with more real gold and silver for no apparent reason...

In just a few short years, we have witnessed Polkadot's journey from a top-tier project to its current state. The spiritual leader disregards worldly affairs, while various factions within the team engage in political struggles. All the outstanding Chinese practitioners from Web3 Foundation and Parity have resigned, and the once high-quality projects have left one after another. Chinese builders and the once ambitious large investors have left in disappointment...

It's a pity for such a good game of Go, to have such a board.