Polkadot Unveils Major Upgrade Plan: Relay Chain Replacement And 10M DOT Prize Incentive

Gavin Wood, the founder of the Polkadot protocol, has unveiled a new Gray Paper outlining the forthcoming Join-Accumulate Machine (JAM) upgrade for the network. This announcement occurred during Wood’s presentation on Polkadot’s future at the Token2049 crypto conference in Dubai. 

Wood introduced the JAM Implementer’s Prize, a 10 Million DOT prize pool, to encourage diverse development of the JAM protocol. 

According to the announcement, the JAM upgrade aims to replace the relay chain, which acts as the central data chain in the Polkadot network, with a “more modular and minimalist design” that will allow Polkadot to run generic services and increase network stability. 

The parachains service within JAM will support existing Substrate-based parachains, enabling developers to continue using Substrate to develop and deploy their blockchains. 

Notably, these services will have no predefined limits on code, data, or state capacity and can accommodate additional DOT deposits for increased capacity.

JAM’s design includes several technical improvements. It replaces WebAssembly with the Polkadot Virtual Machine based on the RISC-V ISA, an open-source instruction set architecture (ISA) used to develop custom processors.

It also introduces SAFROLE, a SNARK-based block production algorithm. These upgrades are reportedly designed to optimize performance and scalability within the Polkadot network.

To realize the vision of “a truly decentralized protocol,” Polkadot aims to support multiple client implementations. Furthermore, the JAM Implementer’s prize has been established to incentivize and fund projects contributing to the development of JAM implementations. The announcement further reads on the matter:

We believe that supporting a range of implementations in various programming languages will strengthen the ecosystem’s foundation. It distributes the power of protocol implementers more widely and reduces the risk of a bug in one implementation taking down the entire network.

The JAM Implementer’s Prize will collaborate with existing and future funding initiatives that support Polkadot’s ecosystem and technology stack. These initiatives include Decentralized Futures, Grants, and Polkadot’s on-chain treasury. 

The prize will be activated when JAM is ratified as a Polkadot technology through the network’s on-chain governance mechanism.

Overall, Gavin Wood’s introduction of the JAM upgrade and the associated 10 Million DOT prize reflects Polkadot’s intention to increase the protocol’s use and adoption. JAM’s modular design and incentives for multi-client implementations are also expected to contribute to ongoing efforts to decentralize the Polkadot network. 

As JAM development continues, the Polkadot ecosystem welcomes proposals from teams interested in implementing it in various programming environments.

Despite the recent announcement, the network’s native token, DOT, has been unable to break the downtrend witnessed over the past month. Currently trading at $6.75, it reflects a significant 24% decline in price over the last 30 days.

Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com