Polkadot’s latest financial report is controversial, burning $37 million and making no progress

Polkadot released its financial report for the first half of 2024 over the weekend, but it caused a lot of controversy. According to data released by Polkadot, its total expenditure in the first half of the year reached US$87 million (approximately 11 million DOTs), of which marketing expenses accounted for the highest proportion, reaching US$37 million, accounting for nearly half of its total expenditure.

Source: Polkadot Polkadot’s total expenditure in the first half of the year

These marketing expenses are mainly used for advertising and media, online and offline community building activities, and large-scale conferences. However, community members generally reported that this huge marketing expense did not bring significant market impact and user growth.

Source: Polkadot Polkadot’s spending on marketing expenses

The community questioned: Where did the money go?

Polkadot’s marketing spending sparked a strong response from the community. Many members believed that these marketing expenses did not bring substantial results and questioned whether the funds were used reasonably. For example, some members pointed out that Polkadot paid large sums to some well-known social media accounts, but the fan activity and engagement of these accounts were not high.

Among the marketing expenses listed in Polkadot’s financial report, advertising accounts for half of the marketing efforts ($21 million).

  • Sponsorships of $10 million: Includes a $6.8 million sports sponsorship deal with a prominent football club, as well as sponsorship of race car driver Conor Daly ($1.9 million) and, most recently, a partnership with esports tournament organizer HEROIC ($1.3 million).

  • Institutions and KOLs $4.9 million: EVOX ($2.2 million), Lunar Strategy ($1.3 million), Chainwire ($490,000) and Unchained ($460,000), etc.

  • Digital advertising $4 million.

  • CoinMarketCap advertises $1 million.

  • $900,000 in EVOX advertising.

These figures aroused strong resentment among community members, who believed that these funds did not bring significant user growth and market impact, but instead wasted precious resources. Even DeFi researcher Ignas posted: "It seems that Polkadot is still not visible in The KOL posted an analysis of Polkadot, where did all the money go? Corruption is serious!”

Source: X DeFi researcher Ignas said he cannot see Polkadot (left); chain researcher Chen Jian said he has not seen Polkadot’s analysis. Where has all the money gone? Corruption is serious (right)

Discriminating against Asian developers, drawing criticism from the entire Internet

In addition to the issue of marketing expenses, Polkadot has also been accused of discriminating against Asian developers in the allocation of project grants. Victor Ji, co-founder of Manta Network, publicly stated that Polkadot’s ecosystem has a highly toxic culture and obvious discrimination against Asian developers.

Victor Ji said that developers in Asia often encounter higher thresholds and more resistance when applying for Polkadot grants, while projects in Europe and the United States are more likely to receive financial support. He pointed out on social media that the Polkadot team is biased in grant allocation and that the efforts and contributions of Asian developers have not received due recognition.

Source: Victor Ji, co-founder of X Manta Network, said that Polkadot has obvious discrimination against Asian developers

Several Asian projects came forward to complain and suffered unfair treatment.

Victor Ji’s accusations have attracted widespread attention, and multiple projects with Asian backgrounds have also come forward to complain about unfair treatment in the Polkadot ecosystem. For example, Harold, the founder of DIN (formerly Web3 Go), said that in the Polkadot ecosystem, Asian projects need to face more political and relationship issues, and the grant application process is cumbersome and opaque, which is far less easy than European and American projects.

In addition, Oneblock+ also posted on social media that it had been unfairly treated in the hackathon proposal it applied for in the Polkadot ecosystem. Their proposal was rejected on the grounds that "the bonuses were too high", but in fact these bonuses were intended to attract more developers to participate and were not too high compared to other hackathons.

These accusations sparked widespread discussion in the community, with Polkadot’s internal management and use of funds taking center stage. Many members called for the introduction of a stricter accountability system to ensure the proper use of funds and transparency, and to avoid waste of resources and discriminatory practices.

To sum up, Polkadot’s latest financial report exposed many problems in its marketing expenses and internal management, especially the discrimination against Asian developers, which caused widespread dissatisfaction. As more projects and developers complain, the Polkadot ecosystem needs to undergo profound reflection and reform to ensure the rational use of resources and the fairness of the ecosystem.

[Disclaimer] There are risks in the market, so investment needs to be cautious. This article does not constitute investment advice, and users should consider whether any opinions, views or conclusions contained in this article are appropriate for their particular circumstances. Invest accordingly and do so at your own risk.