This is a ReferendumV2 post. It can only be edited by the proposer of the post 5FWJbgArTntUgD7gW4To6PV1APLZwbsTYECJqTEHCwVG3RAP.

1. Overview

1.1 Proposal Details

1.2 Project Summary

LunoKit aims to build a customizable UI theme and developer-friendly Web3 account connection infrastructure for the Polkadot ecosystem. Previously, we received a grant from the Web3 Foundation and completed the delivery of all milestones within three months. It unifies wallet connection state management, account abstraction, chain switching, and session recovery, while also providing a rich set of UI components and multi-chain account support, greatly reducing the integration threshold for DApps built on Polkadot SDK chains.

As a frontend development library based on React + TypeScript, LunoKit also provides over 20 Hooks, including account state management, chain switching, connection control, and on-chain data subscription, with support for data caching. Developers can focus on core business logic while LunoKit handles the account module.

LunoKit’s capabilities span three layers:

1. Connection & account fundamentals: multi-wallet connectivity, unified connection state management, a unified signer interface, and network/chain configuration and switching (covering both Polkadot SDK chains and EVM/PVM chains).

2. Developer interfaces (Hooks): 20+ composable Hooks covering connection control, account state, chain switching, and selected on-chain subscription and caching capabilities.

3. Ready-to-integrate UI components: components such as Connect Button, Account Panel, and Network Switcher, with support for theme tokens and branding configuration (appInfo) to help ecosystem projects maintain consistent UI.

Its modular architecture is composed of three packages:

• @luno-kit/core: connectors, chain configuration, account management, and a unified signer interface

• @luno-kit/react: the React integration layer and Hooks

• @luno-kit/ui: UI components, theming system, and branding configuration (appInfo)

1.2 Why LunoKit is needed

In any blockchain ecosystem, account connection is foundational entry-layer infrastructure for every dApp: users must connect a wallet and sign before they can stake, swap, participate in governance, and more. The quality of this entry layer directly impacts ecosystem-wide usability, consistency of user experience, and developer onboarding cost.

Today, the ecosystem commonly faces the following practical challenges:

• Reinventing the wheel and hidden costs: multi-wallet compatibility, connection state management, network switching, and session recovery are highly repetitive across projects, with development and maintenance costs fragmented across teams.
• Compatibility and regression burden: as wallet ecosystems evolve continuously, behavioral differences and edge cases (disconnects, network changes, permission updates, etc.) keep introducing regression-testing overhead, creating significant long-term maintenance pressure.
• Fragmented experience: inconsistent implementations of connection flows, network switching, error handling, and session recovery across dApps reduce predictability for users when moving between apps, which in turn hurts the overall experience and confidence.
• Delivery efficiency for new teams: for hackathons and early-stage teams operating on short timelines, repeatedly implementing the entry layer adds extra development and regression workload, increasing costs and extending delivery cycles.

LunoKit is positioned as an open-source, reusable, configurable, and long-term maintainable connection infrastructure layer. It helps ecosystem projects reduce repetitive work, improve consistency, and focus more of their resources on business innovation and the product itself.

In addition, we have set our 2026 roadmap to focus on EVM account support: enabling dApps to integrate Substrate accounts and EVM accounts within a single, unified connection module through LunoKit—reducing the cost of implementing and maintaining two separate sets of connection logic and UI/state systems in multi-account environments. As more Solidity-based dApps emerge within the Polkadot ecosystem, demand for “dual-account / multi-account login” is expected to grow further. This model has already been validated in practice (for example, some dApps within Bifrost and Hydration support both account types). LunoKit aims to standardize and componentize these capabilities to reduce repetitive development effort across the ecosystem.

1.3 Ecosystem Adoption

The following list is not exhaustive; it only includes some representative online product integration cases that are still in continuous operation.

2. Team

Lunolab is composed of two core members with extensive blockchain development backgrounds. Since joining the ChainX team in 2020, they have been active in the Web3 field, participating in the incubation and development of multiple public chains and application projects.

Cris has over 5 years of Web3 product experience, focusing on cross-chain protocol design and user experience optimization. He led the product design of ChainX, worked as a product manager responsible for OmniBTC’s frontend product design and project management, and from 2023–2025 served as the product lead of BEVM/GEB, overseeing chain-level functionality design and developer tool planning.

Brain is a senior blockchain frontend developer. He joined the ChainX frontend team in 2020, began leading the frontend system development of OmniBTC in 2022 (including OmniSwap and OmniLending), and from 2023–2025 was fully responsible for the frontend architecture of BEVM/GEB, covering explorer, wallet, and developer tools, accumulating deep experience in blockchain frontend development.

• 2020 – ChainX Team
• June 2022 – OmniBTC (incubated within ChainX, now closed, social media X)
  OmniBTC was a cross-chain DeFi platform that included two core products:
  • OmniSwap: A cross-chain trading aggregator supporting 40+ public chains and 20+ cross-chain bridges, with a cumulative trading volume exceeding $2 billion.
  • OmniLending: A cross-chain lending platform with peak TVL of over $10 million.
• June 2023 – June 2025, BEVM (incubated within ChainX, later renamed GEB)
  BEVM was a public chain developed with the Substrate technology stack, aiming to be a Bitcoin Layer 2 compatible with EVM smart contracts, with over 990,000 on-chain addresses.

3. Work Completed

After completing all milestones of the Web3 Foundation Web3 Grant, Lunokit continued ongoing development and maintenance of the product based on real production integration needs and ecosystem feedback, resulting in a set of additional deliverables that have been completed and can be publicly verified. This section is intended to fully list the scope and evidence trail of this “completed work,” making it easy for the community to directly verify the actual output.

3.1 Work Completed Deliverables

Verification

• Public code verification: all PR commit histories above are publicly accessible and reviewable.

• Functional verification: Docs / examples / live demo can be used to validate connection flows, component previews, theming configuration, and integration-ready code export.

• Ecosystem usage verification: production integrations can be validated via the listed live applications (e.g., Snowbridge, Potatao, etc.).

3.2 Retroactive Budget & Cost Breakdown

This section covers only the work listed in the “Work Completed Deliverables” roadmap section (PR-based evidence). To align with OpenGov’s milestone-oriented funding approach and to reduce immediate treasury outflow, we structure the retroactive request as a partial reimbursement by applying a conservative, discounted hourly rate to the already completed and publicly verifiable work.

Budget Summary (Labor)

Rationale

• The work covered here is already completed and publicly verifiable (PR-based evidence, demos, and integrations).

• We are intentionally requesting reimbursement at 30 USD/hour, which is below typical market rates for senior Web3 engineering and product/UI work, to keep the proposal cost-effective and aligned with milestone-oriented funding expectations.

3. Development Roadmap

We will deliver LunoKit’s heterogeneous-chain support (Polkadot SDK + EVM) and other content through monthly milestones from April to September 2026. Each milestone has clear scope, measurable success criteria, and public verification anchors (PRs/commits, release tags, docs, examples, and demo updates).

3.1 Milestone 1 — April 2026 (Core Foundations)

Objective: Introduce a robust type system and configuration layer in @luno-kit/core to support both Substrate and EVM chains under a unified connection model while maintaining strict type safety.

Success Criteria

• @luno-kit/core can automatically detect configuration and load the corresponding heterogeneous connector instances.
• When calling createConfig, IDE autocomplete and compile-time inference correctly narrow types based on chainType (Substrate vs EVM).
• Developers can integrate Polkadot Vault into their dapp by modifying a few lines of code in the configuration file.

Public Deliverables / Verification Anchors (published upon milestone completion)

• Core API type definitions documenting the complete multi-track type system.

• createConfig implementation in packages/core (core initialization logic).

• A versioned release tag (or release notes) and the PR/commit list covering Milestone 1 scope.

3.2 Milestone 2 — May 2026 (React State Pipeline + Hooks Namespace Support)

Objective: Establish a bi-directional state synchronization pipeline and upgrade core hooks to support a namespace parameter with compile-time type narrowing and safe behavior across heterogeneous environments.

Success Criteria

• 15+ core hooks support namespace with strict type narrowing, enabling seamless switching between ecosystems.

• Substrate-only hooks degrade gracefully in EVM mode (no runtime errors).

Public Deliverables / Verification Anchors (published upon milestone completion)

• Updated @luno-kit/react implementation with namespace-aware hooks and overload-based type narrowing.

• A versioned release tag (or release notes) and the PR/commit list covering Milestone 2 scope.

• Docs updates describing the namespace model and recommended usage patterns.

3.3 Milestone 3 — June 2026 (UI heterogeneous-Chain Adaptation)

Objective: Upgrade UI components to handle dual ecosystems cleanly, improve guidance when both Substrate and EVM connectors coexist, and implement reliable activeNamespace restoration behavior.

Design Reference

Figma: https://www.figma.com/design/NRI1vLxg6qquNNdXmSxhlv/Lumo-Connect-v0.2.0?node-id=4001-2&p=f&t=CluGbjfRWkN6b0s1-0

Success Criteria

• UI adapts automatically based on activeNamespace, including icons, address format (SS58 vs 0x), and ecosystem visual indicators.

• When both ecosystems are available, users can reliably discover, select, and switch between Substrate and EVM wallet contexts without confusion.

• After page refresh, dual-session restoration behaves correctly and activeNamespace fallback logic prevents “stuck” states.

• The Manage Wallets component matches the linked Figma design and supports the expected dual-ecosystem management flows.

• Scrollable lists (wallets/network/addresses) render with a smooth edge-fade/scroll mask effect and maintain performance.

• Mobile layouts are optimized (touch-friendly sizing, spacing, and modal behavior) without regressions on desktop.

• New theming tokens (including connect text color) are available and reflected in the demo/configuration flows.

Public Deliverables / Verification Anchors (published upon milestone completion)

• Updated @luno-kit/ui package implementing heterogeneous-chain adaptations for ConnectButton, ConnectModal, ChainModal, plus the new Manage Wallets component.

• Demo updates showcasing dual-ecosystem UI flows (including Manage Wallets) aligned with the Figma design reference.

• A versioned release tag (or release notes) and the PR/commit list covering Milestone 3 scope.

• Demo updates showcasing: mobile refinements, new theme tokens, scroll mask effect, and Ledger multi-account selection UI (published upon milestone completion).

3.4 Milestone 4 — July 2026 (Unified Transaction & Signature Facade)

Objective: Provide a unified transaction and signing interface in React that supports both ecosystems while preserving access to underlying native status/details (Viem vs Dedot).

Success Criteria

• Developers can send transactions via a unified interface and receive both LunoKit-mapped status and the raw native (Viem/Dedot) status/data.

• AccountDetailsModal and related components correctly display heterogeneous addresses without formatting errors.

• Users can use any of the supported EVM wallets to send transactions.

Public Deliverables / Verification Anchors (published upon milestone completion)

• Unified transaction model/schema with raw-state passthrough.

• Updated React hooks (useSendTransaction, useSignMessage) and supporting types.

• A versioned release tag (or release notes) and the PR/commit list covering Milestone 4 scope.

• Demo/docs updates demonstrating unified transaction/signing usage.

3.5 Milestone 5 — August 2026 (Testing & CI Quality Gates)

Objective: Add comprehensive automated testing for core paths across Core and React hooks, ensuring stability for connect/switch/transaction flows in both ecosystems.

Success Criteria

• CI passes for the full test suite; core paths (connect/switch/tx) are covered.

• Transaction lifecycle states (signature → confirmation) behave consistently across both ecosystems.

• Coverage targets: Core ≥ 90%, React hooks core-path coverage ≥ 80%.

• When connecting a Substrate account using Ledger, you can choose which account to import.

Public Deliverables / Verification Anchors (published upon milestone completion)

• Automated test suite source code (unit + integration tests) and CI configuration updates.

• A versioned release tag (or release notes) and the PR/commit list covering Milestone 5 scope.

• A test results summary (e.g., CI artifact link or published report) demonstrating pass status and coverage metrics.

3.6 Milestone 6 — September 2026 (Reference DApp + Docs + v0.2 Release)

Objective: Deliver a flagship integrated demo dApp, improve edge-case stability in real browsers, publish complete documentation and migration guides, and ship LunoKit v0.2

Success Criteria

• A one-command runnable heterogeneous-chain demo site is available, showcasing dual-ecosystem transaction flows.

• Official docs cover all new APIs and heterogeneous-chain integration scenarios.

• The official Live Demo is updated to support and showcase the EVM-related features introduced in v0.2 .

Public Deliverables / Verification Anchors (published upon milestone completion)

• LunoKit v0.2 release across Core, React, and UI packages.

• example/integrated-dapp and a new publicly accessible live demo site.

• Updated developer documentation and migration guide.

• A versioned release tag (or release notes) and the PR/commit list covering Milestone 6 scope.

3.7 Budget Breakdown

Team Costs

Operational Costs

Total Requested Funding

Milestone Distribution:

• Milestone 1 (April 2026): $8,450
• Milestone 2 (May 2026): $8,450
• Milestone 3 (June 2026): $8,450
• Milestone 4 (July 2026): $8,450
• Milestone 5 (August 2026): $8,450
• Milestone 6 (September 2026): $8,450

3.8 Milestone scope note：

While the milestone plan describes the deliverables we commit to for funding and verification, we also

expect to ship additional fixes and features beyond the proposal in response to real developer needs and production integration feedback within the ecosystem. We will keep the community informed and ensure the committed milestone deliverables remain the priority.

This proposal requests funding for a set of targeted feature developments for Polkadot-API and its surrounding ecosystem components.

Polkadot-API is a modular, light-client-first suite of libraries designed to provide a high-performance and developer-friendly interface to the Polkadot ecosystem. Since its first stable release in 2024, the project has become an important piece of infrastructure for building decentralized applications, with adoption across multiple teams and products.

This proposal focuses on delivering additional features and improvements identified through ongoing collaboration with ecosystem stakeholders, complementing the basic maintenance proposal approved in https://polkadot.subsquare.io/referenda/1856

Scope of Work

The proposal covers four main areas:

1. Polkadot-API Core Enhancements
Implementation of full support for Extrinsic v5 and the new createTransaction API, including:

• First-class support for transaction creation workflows
• Libraries for wallet and extension integration
• Support for custom transaction extensions and typings

2. SDK Improvements (Statement Store)
Continuous adaptation of the Statement Store SDK to evolving RPC specifications, ensuring compatibility and reliability for data propagation mechanisms across the network.

3. PAPI Console Expansion
Further development of the PAPI Console as a developer tool and ecosystem interface, including:

• UX improvements
• Extrinsic analysis tools
• Enhanced account management (locks, vesting, etc.)
• Chain metrics and block data visualization
• Teleport integration

As the ecosystem evolves and legacy tooling is gradually phased out, improving onboarding and providing modern, well-supported interfaces becomes increasingly important. The PAPI Console contributes to this transition by offering new capabilities while aligning with the current architecture of Polkadot.

4. JSON-RPC Specification Improvements
Contributions to protocol-level improvements required by modern dApps, including:

• Pagination and storage proof support (chainHead v2)
• Improved transaction tracking

Full Proposal

For a detailed breakdown of the scope, milestones, and technical context, please refer to the full proposal: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DU8LXaDtGf6N3nDz7t6yj0CoYOAbu1cS99X9FAw0W6g/edit?usp=sharing

Budget & Execution

• Total requested: 76,380 €
• Total workload: 804 hours
• Rate: 95 €/hour

Funds will be managed through the Polkadot Community Foundation (PCF).

A total of 4,000 € is included as a buffer to cover PCF operational and administrative expenses (legal and operational costs). Any unused portion of this buffer will be returned to the Polkadot Treasury.

The EUR - USDC rate has been set at the time of submission by xe.com's rate 1.15359324 USDC / EUR

Upon approval:

• The PCF will establish the necessary contractual agreement with our legal entity
• The team will issue a single invoice to the PCF for the full amount
• Payment will be executed in USDC to 13dXmfrN4Prb3FmdxKDNRyUeNDuNwUTZibYAMFNKmZJut2Lq a multisig wallet controlled by the team.
• The PCF will retain the portion required for operational costs and return any excess to the Treasury

The team will maintain transparency through ongoing updates on GitHub and the Polkadot Forum.

This referendum formally closes the Polkadot Fast Grants and Open Source Developer Grants bounty programs following the completion of their defined scope and boundary conditions.

All outstanding obligations, pending evaluations, and eligible payouts have been resolved or terminated in accordance with the bounty rules and governance framework. Any remaining unallocated or unused funds are to be returned to the Polkadot Treasury.

Due to potential display issues with some charts in format across various devices and platforms, please refer to the detailed information in this Google Document:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DKX62a9LtAWd7CF7oBTUQe0rZ23xcwnnrs1fj_14JlQ/edit?usp=sharing

Past discussion

https://polkadot.polkassembly.io/post/3390

Based on this discussion version, this proposal corrects some typos. For the development costs, Subscan will self-fund 30% and request 70%. Additionally, responses to community feedback will be added in the comments section.

Past proposals

• #151 Subscan | Infrastructure Costs of Subscan for Polkadot & Westend & Rococo Networks
• #20 Subscan | Infrastructure Costs of Subscan for Polkadot & Westend & Rococo & Statemint & Rockmine Networks (from July to December 2022)
• #1056 Subscan | Infrastructure Costs of Subscan for Polkadot & Westend & Rococo & Statemint & Rockmine Networks (from October 2023 to June 2024)
• #1366 Subscan Q3/Q4 2024 Funding Proposal: Basic service fee & Development cost for the Polkadot, Westend, and Rococo Ecosystems）
• #1727 Subscan Q4 2024 – Q2 2025 Funding Proposal: Basic Service Fee & Development Cost for the Polkadot and Westend Ecosystems

Overview

Subscan requests funding from the Polkadot Treasury to ensure the continued operation and enhancement of one of Polkadot’s most critical public data infrastructures. As the default block explorer and primary indexing backend for the Polkadot ecosystem, Subscan provides high-availability, low-latency, and fully historical on-chain data for the Polkadot Relay Chain and all Polkadot system parachains. These services are relied upon daily by developers, validators, wallets, governance platforms, infrastructure providers, auditors, and millions of unique users per year.

This proposal covers Subscan’s work across two key areas:

A. Basic Service Fees (2025 Q3–Q4)

Ensuring uninterrupted operational maintenance for the six Polkadot system networks:

• Polkadot Relay Chain
• AssetHub-Polkadot
• BridgeHub-Polkadot
• Coretime-Polkadot
• Collectives-Polkadot
• People-Polkadot

These services include full database indexing, runtime compatibility, node operations, 24/7 monitoring, bandwidth provisioning, storage scaling, DevOps automation, and end-user/API support—ensuring continuous data availability across the entire Polkadot ecosystem.

Requested: USD 151,200

B. Development Fees (2025 Q2–Q4)

Compensation for major ecosystem-critical work already completed, including:

• Full compatibility support and historical corrections for the AssetHub migration
• XCM execution and observability upgrades
• Governance transparency improvements (Treasury–Referenda linking, Preimage timelines, child bounty tracking)
• Data correctness repairs and ParaID history recovery
• Performance enhancements across API, dashboard, and frontend layers
• Monitoring architecture redesign and infrastructure optimization

Total: USD 73,167

Subscan Team Contribution: To support the sustainable growth of the ecosystem, the Subscan Team is self-funding 30% of these development costs.

Requested: USD 51,216

Total requested amount: USD 202,416

Recent Contributions and Ongoing Maintenance Work

From Q2 2025 to Q4 2025, Subscan completed extensive development and infrastructure work that directly supports Polkadot’s transition into the next-generation ecosystem architecture—particularly the AssetHub migration, which has been one of the most significant structural changes to the Polkadot network in recent years.

Subscan’s work during this period can be summarized in the following core areas:

1. Full Compatibility & Data Migration for AssetHub

AssetHub underwent multiple breaking updates, including changes to assets, extrinsics, metadata layouts, governance modules, and transfer logic. Subscan delivered complete compatibility support, including:

• Support for the new transfer_assets extrinsic (breaking change)
• Completion of missing governance metadata such as CreatedAtBlock, UpdatedAtBlock
• Migration fixes for precision, balances, metadata, and cross-chain asset visibility
• Repaired XCM token search, asset flow dashboards, and multi-network balance consistency
• Updated runtime compatibility across multiple versions released during the migration window

These contributions ensured that wallets, explorers, governance dashboards, and integration tools remained fully functional throughout the AssetHub migration, preventing ecosystem disruption.

2. Relay Chain & Parachain Data Reliability Improvements

Major foundational improvements included:

• Persistent Elasticsearch sync checkpoints
• Block/event sync memory optimization
• Historical ParaID mapping repair
• Account holder data recovery for Polkadot & Kusama
• Large-block (>100k events) processing pipeline

These enhancements strengthened chain-wide data accuracy and reduced the risk of indexer stalls during runtime upgrades or heavy XCM traffic.

3. XCM Observability, Monitoring, and Dashboards

Given Polkadot’s XCM-heavy activity, Subscan delivered system-wide improvements:

• XCM Process navigation and linking repair
• Standardized XCM execute events
• New XCM Asset Flow chart
• Optimized XCM reward sync
• ProcessXcmError decoding support

Combined, these improvements make Subscan the most complete and accurate public XCM observability layer in the ecosystem.

4. Governance Transparency Enhancements

Subscan improved auditability and cross-module visibility by:

• Fixing Treasury ↔ Referenda missing links
• Adding Preimage change tracking
• Supporting external proposals
• Enhancing referenda timelines for multi-module events
• Adding child bounty statistics and distributions

This has become critical infrastructure for OpenGov data, treasury analysts, and governance dashboards.

5. User Experience, Performance & Frontend Improvements

Key UX improvements include:

• High-load page optimizations
• Mobile optimization for dashboards
• Portfolio value accuracy fixes
• Identity and privacy mode repairs
• Pagination, sorting, and navigation upgrades

These ensure Subscan remains responsive even under multi-network heavy traffic conditions.

6. Infrastructure, Monitoring & Operational Maintenance

Continuous operations included:

• 24/7 monitoring for 12+ networks
• Hotfixes for runtime upgrades
• Sync health alerts
• Cost-control measures
• IPFS provider migration
• CI/CD & DevOps automation

These ongoing services are fundamental to maintaining reliable explorer and API availability for the entire Polkadot ecosystem.

Why Subscan Matters

As the default block explorer and indexing layer for Polkadot, Subscan provides the foundational data required by nearly all ecosystem participants.

Developers & Applications

• Reliable APIs: blocks, extrinsics, events, XCM, assets, NFTs
• Faster debugging and monitoring
• Data infrastructure for indexers, dashboards, bots, dApps

Parachain Teams & Validators

• Real-time block production, sync status, and finality
• XCM tracking across chains
• Early detection of node anomalies

Governance Platforms & Participants

• Referendum status, account history, delegation data
• Governance dashboards dependent on Subscan APIs
• Long-term auditability of past governance decisions

End Users, Wallets, and Ecosystem Tools

• Transfers, staking, NFT queries, asset visibility
• Multi-chain UI consistency and reliability

Without Subscan, many essential tools would face significant data degradation, and the accessibility of historical and governance data would be severely impacted.

Scope of This Proposal

This proposal covers two major funding components:

1. Service Fees (2025 Q3–Q4)

Operational maintenance for 6 Polkadot networks:

• Polkadot Relay Chain
• AssetHub
• BridgeHub
• Coretime
• Collectives
• People

These fees cover database storage, indexing, monitoring, bandwidth, DevOps, node maintenance, and end-user support.

2. Development Fees (2025 Q2–2025 Q4)

Compensation for:

• Core data reliability improvements
• Governance & OpenGov enhancements
• XCM dashboards, linking, and data corrections
• Runtime upgrade compatibility across the Polkadot family
• AssetHub migration support and breaking-change compatibility
• UI/UX and performance optimization
• Monitoring & DevOps automation
• Bulk data & research tooling
• Infrastructure migration (IPFS, monitoring, cold storage)

Together, these represent essential public infrastructure development that ensures Subscan remains aligned with Polkadot’s technical evolution.

Service Fee Model & Pricing Methodology

Throughout 2025, Subscan has focused on deep infrastructure optimization. By refining our technical stack, we have successfully reduced internal overhead and operational costs without compromising the high service standards the ecosystem expects. Our goal is to pass these efficiencies directly to the networks we support through a more competitive pricing structure.

Phased Implementation Strategy

To ensure a stable transition, we are rolling out these optimizations and subsequent price reductions in stages:

• Pilot Phase (Westend): The new infrastructure and discounted pricing are already being piloted on the Westend testnet.
• Expansion Phase: Following the Westend pilot, these optimizations will be progressively integrated into canary networks (Kusama) and eventually the Polkadot mainnet.
• Current Proposal Scope (2025 Q3–Q4): This proposal maintains the existing fee structure to ensure continuity and stability during the final stages of the optimization rollout.
• 2026 Outlook: Starting in Q1 2026, a fully optimized pricing model and additional discounts will be applied across all supported networks.

Note: For a detailed breakdown of how these infrastructure improvements will impact future budgets, please refer to the "2026 Cost Outlook (Infrastructure Optimization Based)" section.

Pricing Methodology

For the period of 2025 Q3–Q4, Subscan’s fee structure remains consistent with the model successfully utilized over the past two years.

Our maintenance packages are designed to support a wide range of data and operational needs, ensuring stable and efficient system performance. Because our overall cost structure is composed of multiple infrastructure and operational expenses—such as cloud services, network acceleration, monitoring systems, node providers, and the Subscan team’s ongoing operations—we use storage consumption as the primary metric for determining service fees.

Pricing Tiers:
a. Basic Plan

• Up to 200 GB: $799/month
• Beyond 200 GB: $5.3/GB
• Automatically upgrades to the next tier after 350 GB

b. Advanced Plan

• Up to 500 GB: $1,699/month
• Beyond 500 GB: $5.2/GB
• Automatically upgrades to the next tier after 750 GB

c. Professional Plan

• Up to 1 TB: $2,999/month
• Beyond 1 TB: $5/GB

Monthly Service Fee Breakdown

1. Database Storage & Indexing

• What It Covers: Continuous indexing of on-chain data—from blocks and transactions to event logs, governance info, and NFTs—so users can reliably access both real-time and historical records.
  • Why It Matters: As chain activity increases, so does data volume. By tying fees to storage needs, we accurately account for the costs of scaling infrastructure (e.g., additional database capacity).

1. Network Egress Bandwidth

• What It Covers: The outgoing traffic required to serve user requests quickly and consistently, including API calls, UI data retrieval, and integrations with third-party tools.
  • Why It Matters: A stable, high-bandwidth connection ensures that explorers, wallets, and dApps receive timely data responses, even during peak activity.

1. Monitoring & DevOps

• What It Covers: Round-the-clock health checks, internal alert pipelines, CI/CD automation, and system auditing. This includes running multiple nodes, maintaining synchronization, and ensuring high availability.
  • Why It Matters: These processes help detect issues early (e.g., node crashes, indexer slowdowns) and streamline updates or deployments, minimizing service disruption for the community.

1. Node Status Monitoring & Notifications

• What It Covers: Dedicated tools and alert mechanisms to track the real-time status of network nodes—particularly those relating to the Polkadot Relay Chain and the associated parachains (Assethub, Coretime, Bridgehub, People).
  • Why It Matters: Quick notifications enable parachain teams, validators, and the wider ecosystem to react rapidly to performance changes, forks, or potential security incidents.

1. Technical Support & Troubleshooting

• What It Covers: Responsive assistance for users, developers, and validators, including issue resolution, feature guidance, and integration help.
  • Why It Matters: Timely support keeps the ecosystem running smoothly and fosters a positive development environment—especially crucial for teams building dApps, explorers, and automation tools.

Why We Use Storage as a Pricing Metric

Correlation to Real Costs:
Storage growth scales directly with block production and transaction activity, making it a more stable and predictable metric than raw API traffic. As chain activity evolves, storage becomes the clearest and most consistent indicator of the underlying infrastructure load required to maintain long-term historical data.

Subscan Baseline:
Subscan determines the appropriate fee tier based on the median storage consumption measured during the billing period. For example, for the Q3–Q4 2025 billing cycle, the baseline storage usage is derived from data recorded on September 30th.

Predictable Billing:
Basing fees on storage reduces the volatility caused by sudden traffic spikes and ensures a more transparent, usage-based cost model for both the community and the treasury.

Beyond Storage: The Full Cost Landscape

Our pricing also incorporates the broader operational overhead required to run a production-grade, high-availability data service—such as cloud infrastructure, network acceleration, monitoring systems, node providers, and Subscan’s ongoing engineering and support efforts.

Because these components fluctuate dynamically based on cloud regions, traffic patterns, redundancy requirements, and security considerations, they cannot be broken down into a stable or meaningful line-item list. In addition, some of these details involve sensitive architectural and security-related information that should not be fully disclosed publicly in order to preserve system robustness and reduce attack surface.

For these reasons, Subscan adopts a service-fee-based pricing model, which is consistent with industry practices used by major explorer and indexing providers. Pegging the service fee to storage usage strikes the right balance between:

• transparent and verifiable metrics (storage is measurable on-chain and externally),
• predictable treasury budgeting, and
• preserving the flexibility and sustainability necessary to maintain and upgrade a mission-critical public data infrastructure.

This model also enables Subscan to invest continuously in optimization and long-term cost reduction—ensuring that infrastructure improvements directly translate into better performance and lower overall fees for the ecosystem over time.

Fee Details

2025 Q3 & Q4 Maintenance Fee

• Total Maintenance Fees for 2025 Q3 & Q4 (6 networks): USD 151,200

2025 Q2 New Features Development Costs

During Q2 2025, Subscan completed a comprehensive series of platform enhancements focused on network-wide reliability, data accuracy, performance optimization, and user experience improvements across the Polkadot ecosystem.
These efforts strengthened Subscan’s role as a core public infrastructure component used daily by developers, validators, nominators, governance participants, and parachain teams.

Key areas of contribution include:

• Core data reliability improvements, such as persistent Elasticsearch sync checkpoints and state-change consistency fixes.
• Significant UX and interface upgrades, including portfolio accuracy fixes, identity privacy repairs, dark-mode enhancements, and improved navigation patterns.
• High-impact backend and API performance work, addressing slow endpoints across multi-chain token, account, reward, staking, and XCM routes.
• Cross-network operational improvements, including redesigned monitoring systems and IPFS infrastructure migration.
• Support for analytical and research workflows, through bulk export scripts and scheduled data generation systems.

Below is the complete task list for Q2 2025：

Our Compensation Rates and Total Costs:

• DevOps Engineer: $75/hour
• Front-End Engineer: $75/hour
• Back-End Engineer: $75/hour
• Product Manager/Test: $70/hour
• Designer: $70/hour

With a total of 144 hours worked, the calculated cost based on the above rates amounts to $10,650.

2025 Q3 New Features Development Costs

During Q3 2025, Subscan continued its role as a core piece of Substrate ecosystem public infrastructure, focusing on strengthening data correctness, cross-chain observability, governance transparency, and runtime upgrade compatibility for Polkadot and its ecosystem parachains. The work in this period concentrated on hardening the production explorer that is used daily by validators, nominators, governance participants, infrastructure providers, and application teams.

Across all categories, this Q3 scope represents 46 concrete engineering tasks, covering:

• deep data accuracy & historical repair work (events, balances, ParaID timelines, child bounties),
• performance and scalability improvements around traces, large blocks, heavy dashboards and XCM visualizations,
• governance, referenda and treasury UX upgrades for more auditable decision-making,
• XCM and AssetHub integration and monitoring improvements,
• consolidated Polkadot-family runtime upgrade compatibility, and
• practical UX & notification flow refinements that reduce friction for everyday users.

Below is the complete task list for Q3 2025：

Our Compensation Rates and Total Costs:

• DevOps Engineer: $75/hour
• Front-End Engineer: $75/hour
• Back-End Engineer: $75/hour
• Product Manager/Test: $70/hour
• Designer: $70/hour

With a total of 359 hours worked, the calculated cost based on the above rates amounts to $26,530.

2025 Q4 New Features Development Costs

In the Q4, Subscan focused on comprehensive optimization and improvement of the Polkadot ecosystem, having already completed the basic development work for the AssetHub migration in the Q3. This phase transitioned from foundational infrastructure setup to deep compatibility adaptation, ensuring that critical modules—including Staking, Governance, and Vesting—remained fully auditable and accessible across the migration boundary.

Key technical achievements included the delivery of historical data backfilling to bridge migration gaps, the implementation of cross-chain validator linking to maintain traceability between AssetHub and the Relay Chain, and the hardening of runtime upgrade monitoring for the entire system parachain suite. In parallel, Subscan executed a major UX/UI overhaul, refactoring core explorers pages (Account, Block, and Dashboard) and aligning the visual identity with the latest Polkadot brand refresh. This dual focus on data integrity and user experience ensures a seamless transition for the community while providing the high-fidelity analytical tools required for the "Asynchronous Backing" era.

Q4 Summary of Work (Highlights)：

• Migration Depth & Data Integrity: Resolved complex indexing challenges by backfilling historical gaps and fixing event association for governance and staking modules.
• Infrastructure Resilience: Optimized Polkadot API performance and enhanced indexer recovery mechanisms for system parachains (BridgeHub, People, Coretime, etc.).
• User Experience (UX) Debt Clearance: Completely rebuilt the navigation architecture and upgraded the layout of high-traffic pages to improve readability and audit-friendliness.
• Ecosystem Compatibility: Delivered end-to-end validation for multiple runtime upgrades, ensuring zero downtime in data availability during Polkadot’s shift to a more modular architecture.

Our Compensation Rates and Total Costs:

• DevOps Engineer: $75/hour
• Front-End Engineer: $75/hour
• Back-End Engineer: $75/hour
• Product Manager/Test: $70/hour
• Designer: $70/hour

With a total of 487 hours worked, the calculated cost based on the above rates amounts to $35,987

Why Polkadot’s Fee Is Higher Than Other Chains

Polkadot Relay Chain currently exceeds 4 TB of indexed data. This is primarily the result of long-term historical accumulation and the high density of chain activity. The key technical factors driving the large storage footprint include:

1. Long network lifespan and full historical retention

Polkadot is one of the earliest and longest-running networks in the Polkadot ecosystem.
Its extended operational history results in a significantly larger volume of blocks, extrinsics, events, and state transitions.
Subscan preserves complete historical data without pruning, ensuring full auditability and long-term access for developers, explorers, governance tools, and research.

2. Increasing data complexity over time

As runtime modules, governance logic, asset operations, and state transition models have evolved, the structure and richness of on-chain events have grown substantially.
This results in more complex data schemas and heavier indexing requirements for historical blocks.

3. High density of XCM-related activity

Polkadot carries some of the most experimental and active XCM traffic in the entire ecosystem.
The large number of cross-chain messages and event records generates:

• substantially more event data,
• more complex event-linking requirements, and
• larger historical datasets that must be preserved to maintain auditability.

This XCM-heavy traffic is a major contributor to the relay chain’s significantly larger storage footprint compared to individual parachains.

Optimization & Cost Reduction Roadmap

(Already operational on testnet and gradually rolling out across the Polkadot and Polkadot ecosystems, with quantifiable cost-reduction results to be reflected in billing beginning Q1 2026.)

To mitigate long-term storage growth and reduce operational costs—particularly for the Polkadot relay chain—we are executing several structural optimization initiatives. These include efforts to reduce reliance on GCP and lower total cost of ownership.

1. Hot/Cold storage separation

We are segmenting frequently accessed data into high-performance storage tiers while moving older blocks and events into cost-efficient archival layers.
This significantly reduces the cost of maintaining multi-terabyte historical datasets.

2. XCM-focused indexing optimizations

Given that XCM events represent a major portion of Polkadot’s data weight, we are optimizing:

• event-linking logic,
• redundant index structures, and
• cross-chain reference mappings.

These adjustments reduce long-term index growth without affecting query accuracy.

3. Reduced reliance on GCP (major cost-efficiency initiative)

To optimize long-term infrastructure costs, we are:

• migrating certain storage layers to lower-cost object-storage providers,
• reducing GCP I/O operations via caching and pre-aggregation strategies,
• gradually shifting parts of the system toward self-hosted or hybrid infrastructure.

These changes directly address one of the largest cost drivers in the current operational model.

Long-Term Sustainability & VisionOur long-term goal is to reduce reliance on treasury funding through multiple channels:

• Continuous optimization to limit infrastructure costs as chain data grows.
• Exploring responsible revenue streams (e.g., optional premium features or partnerships).
• Actively incorporating community suggestions to ensure value delivery aligns with user needs, increasing platform utility and potential monetization avenues without compromising openness or neutrality.

🔥 2026 Cost Outlook (Infrastructure Optimization Based)

Subscan’s goal is to deliver high-quality infrastructure services with stable performance, predictable budgeting, and cost-efficient pricing, while also offering additional discounts for prepaid commitments.

As our ongoing optimization continues, Subscan expects to introduce more favorable and more predictable pricing in Q1 2026, including:

• A more standardized pricing structure across networks and services
• Improved cost efficiency at higher usage levels
• Additional incentives for annual/prepaid subscriptions

BASIC PLAN

• $799 / Month
• Includes 500 GB / Month
• Up to ~52% lower total cost vs previous pricing at high usage

ADVANCED PLAN

• $1,699 / Month
• Includes 1 TB / Month
• Up to ~43% lower total cost vs previous pricing at high usage

CUSTOM PLAN

• Tailored pricing based on usage
• ~33% lower total cost vs previous pricing at high usage

Annual Payment Network Discounts (Stackable)

• Mainnet: 10% off
• Canary: 25% off
• Testnet: 40% off

2026 Estimated Annual Cost (Updated Pricing + Testnet Annual Discount)

Based on the current scope and configuration, the estimated Total Annual Fee (USD) for 2026 is: 225,666.

Please note that this amount is provided for 2026 cost forecasting purposes only, and is intended to support an evaluation of the long-term sustainability of the service. We welcome further discussion on the most suitable payment structure and scope adjustments, including:

• Whether annual billing is preferred (with applicable discounts)
• After the AssetHub migration, whether the positioning and service scope of AssetHub should be updated
• Whether to enable additional AssetHub Trace functionality, if required
• Whether to disable Relay Chain Trace to optimize cost efficiency

Subscan will prepare the 2026 service proposal based on the community’s feedback and preferred direction.

Total Requested Amount

The total requested amount for all 6 networks, including all maintenance, operational overhead, and mandatory compatibility work, is USD 202,416.

Conclusion
Subscan remains a foundational pillar of the Polkadot ecosystem—providing the high-fidelity block indexing, XCM observability, and governance transparency required by developers, auditors, and millions of users worldwide.

The 2025 development cycle marked a period of intense technical transformation for Polkadot. By ensuring seamless compatibility through the AssetHub migration and multiple breaking runtime upgrades, Subscan has preserved the continuity of the historical record and the stability of downstream applications.

Our Commitment to the Ecosystem We recognize the current challenges facing the broader market and the Polkadot ecosystem. While Subscan’s operational costs are already highly competitive, we are committed to standing with the community during these demanding times through two key initiatives:

1. Direct Team Subsidy: To share the development burden, the Subscan Team is voluntarily self-funding 30% of the development costs included in this proposal.
2. Aggressive 2026 Cost Reduction: We are actively transitioning to a new infrastructure model (Hot/Cold storage separation and GCP optimization). This will allow us to deliver a significantly lower pricing structure in 2026, with projected savings of 33% to 52% for high-usage networks, ensuring that Subscan becomes more cost-efficient even as Polkadot’s data grows.

We remain dedicated to:

• Operational Transparency: Maintaining neutrality and openness as a mission-critical public good.
• Data Integrity: Safeguarding the historical accuracy and reliability of the Polkadot Relay Chain and all system parachains.
• Future-Ready Infrastructure: Continuously optimizing our stack to support the "Asynchronous Backing" era and beyond.

We appreciate the Treasury’s continued trust and support. We will continue to evolve alongside Polkadot, providing a high-performance, cost-efficient, and transparent data layer for the entire communi

This Referendum is canceled. Please (continue to) vote Nay.

A new version incorporating the feedback received here is up for vote: New Proposal

Voters have become increasingly cautious, making it harder for projects to gain approval for their proposals. Our project introduces a clawback mechanism to significantly reduce risks to the Polkadot Treasury. By implementing this safeguard, we aim to lower financial exposure and provide voters with peace of mind to confidently approve funding for impactful projects.

With our tool, a group of decentralized treasury guardians is incentivized to oversee scheduled payouts and intervene when necessary to protect the Treasury.

Key features of our proposal:

• No upfront payments are requested.
• All payouts are tied to milestone delivery, with sufficient time for the community to review and delay/ cancel disbursements if needed to ensure accountability on our behalf.Milestone Delivery Deadlines:
  Milestone 1: Nov 9 2025 -> Scheduled Payout: Dec 29 2025
  Milestone 2: Dec 7 2025 -> Scheduled Payout: Jan 26 2026
  Milestone 3: Jan 4 2026 -> Scheduled Payout: Feb 23 2026
  Milestone 4: Feb 1 2026 -> Scheduled Payout: Mar 23 2026
  Milestone 5: Mar 1 2026 -> Scheduled Payout: Apr 20 2026
  Milestone 6: May 29 2026 -> Scheduled Payout: May 18 2026

We are passionate about leading the charge to de-risk the Treasury, enhance its efficiency, and better align the interests of token holders and proposers. We eagerly look forward to collaborating with the Polkadot community and new + existing ecosystem teams to achieve these goals.

Read our full proposal here.