July 2024: Key network metrics and insights

Welcome to your go-to source for the latest tech updates, key metrics, and discussions within Polkadot, brought to you by the Parity Success Team. This blog series covers a variety of topics, drawing insights from GitHub, project teams, and the Polkadot Forum.

• Product & Engineering
• Network Insights

By Polkadot•August 16, 2024

Core metrics

Discover the latest insights into OpenGov activity, GitHub developer engagement, and dynamic discussions from the Polkadot Forum. These metrics highlight the growth and progress of the Polkadot ecosystem.

OpenGov activity

This July the community left nothing to spare, with the number of OpenGov Referenda being the highest it’s been this year. The community once again demonstrated why Polkadot is the world’s biggest DAO. OpenGov, Polkadot’s governance system, allows any DOT holder to partake and voice their opinion on-chain.

Want to learn more about the largest DAO and explore how to get involved in OpenGov?

Check out the DAO page to learn more.

Start your OpenGov journey and have your say on the future of Polkadot

Already got your DOT in a third-party wallet like Nova or Talisman? You can stake your DOT directly in various wallets throughout the eco. Some wallets, like Nova, even allow you to partake in governance directly through their mobile app! Check out the native staking wallets page for a full list of compatible Polkadot wallets to get started.

Now that you’ve been given a crash course in OpenGov, highlighted below are some of the most interesting metrics from last month:

• In July there was a total of 1,134 unique voters, the individual number of unique voters who voted at least once throughout the month.
• Looking at referenda, this month saw 118 referenda, with 65 approved, 29 rejected, 22 that were timed out, and 2 that were canceled.

GitHub activity

Whilst the market bled, the devs led. Below is a brief overview of the latest GitHub activity metrics.

• Total repositories: The total number of Repos within the Polkadot Network now sits at 29,917.
• Weekly commits: Showing the strength and rate of development happening within the ecosystem, now sitting at roughly 5,500+ weekly commits, with nearly a 1,000 commit jump from last month alone.
• Weekly developers: Consistency is key! Sometimes it’s impressive to just be steady. Similar to last month, the ecosystem is still sitting at approximately 900 weekly devs throughout the month.

Forum activity

The Polkadot Forum↗ is the home of discussion for the Polkadot ecosystem. It’s a place where ideas, proposals, and queries are collected and worked on.

Below are some key metrics from this month’s incredible growth:

• 161 new faces joined the forum this month
• 89 new topics and 676 new posts created

Additional metrics for the month:

• Page views: 300,000
• User visits: 5,800
• Likes: 1,500

Stack Exchange

Stack Exchange, the land of the devs, was filled with activity throughout July.

Below are some key metrics to check out:

• 63 questions asked
• 39 answered
• 23 left unanswered

A total of roughly 57% of questions were successfully answered.

Product overview

Agile Coretime

All cores on Kusama were once again sold out, with one address, in particular, buying a total of 51 cores at once.

Whilst the price of cores decreased significantly in August to less than 1 KSM, the number of coretime sales skyrocketed throughout July, with 62 cores sold to 7 unique addresses.

One address actually managed to grab a total of 51 cores in a single day:

• Minimum price paid: 0.23 KSM
• Maximum price paid: 2.83 KSM
• Average price paid: 0.53 KSM

Polkadot App

Several teams across Parity and Novasama, in collaboration with Raise, have been quietly working to deliver a new exciting product, the Polkadot Mobile App.

Initially teased by Bjorn Wagner, Parity’s CEO, at Polkadot Decoded last month, the Polkadot App is set to be available for select users in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store in September 2024 with a full rollout in Q4 of this year.

What is the new Polkadot App packing?

The new Polkadot App aims to provide a seamless onboarding experience for new users while providing more real-world experience for new users whilst providing more real-world utility for those already holding DOT.

Below are some anticipated features for the new app:

• Seamless onboarding: No password, and no need to save your seed-phrase
• Fund your wallet: Users can purchase or receive DOT or stablecoins (e.g. USDT, USDC)
• Real-world shopping: Use your crypto to make in-store purchases at over 1 million online and physical stores, plus gain exclusive cashback rewards (initially available in the US)
• Staking: Coming in the near future, users can stake DOT natively in the app and earn up to 18% in rewards

Two new APIs

XCMFee Payment Runtime API

This API streamlines the process of paying XCM fees by eliminating the guesswork around how much to pay for execution, ultimately contributing towards XCM efficiency.

• Check out the Polkadot SDK Github PR for more info

XCMDryRunApi

This API aims to work towards creating an overall better DevEx by providing the following:

• Execution Result
• Local XCM
• Forwarded XCM
• Full list of events

This API works in conjunction with the XCMFee Payment Runtime API, but also can be used for dry-running purposes or for testing.

• Check out the Polkadot SDK Github PR for more info

Stay connected

Thanks for diving into this month’s edition of network metrics and insights. We hope you found the latest updates on Polkadot’s development, governance, and community activities informative.

If you have any questions or feedback or would like to learn more about any of the topics covered, feel free to email remy@parity.io.

Stay tuned for next month's insights!