Hello everyone!

I would like to share a project update and my vision of where Polkadot could be heading. And I would also like to recap what has been happening behind the scenes at Pluto Labs (my newly registered company) and what I have been thinking up to lately.

How I see Polkadot now

With the introduction of JAM, the focus of development has shifted once again on the backend tech. There are no dApps utilising the amazing tech that is being developed. I would like to change that with PlutoFramework - Framework that simplifies mobile dApp development.

Regarding the JAM, PlutoFramework is built in such a modular way that it will be easy to update the existing components to support JAM services as well.

PlutoFramework

I do not want to repeat myself. Learn about it in the official documentation and on github.

PlutoFramework's vision

The vision is not just to develop another piece of tooling for development. It is to help the teams build real dApps - fully decentralised, without any fake3 (= apps that try to market themselves as web3, but do not follow web3 principles). That means also individually helping with our STRONG knowledge to all teams that are using PlutoFramework.

I think it is important to help others! And with PlutoFramework, I would like to scale this opportunity to help others further.

Treasury proposal, where, when?

Soon, but I want to get feedback beforehand and actually polish the presentation of PlutoFramework before asking for anything.

I always wanted to promise less and overdeliver. With the last proposal, I think I achieved that. Apart from promising to implement just nfts on AssetHub and Unique, I implemented nfts from Mythos as well. The implementation is so modular that it expanded to support Xcavate's nfts too.

With Transaction Analyzer, I did not even ask for any funds. Instead, me and Míra delivered something incredible that secured us 1st place at Hackathon in Singapore organised by OneBlock+. If NovaSama or other teams are interested, I am open to collaborating and letting them use my Transaction Analyzer.

Instead of making promises in advance, I have decided to take a big risk and instead focus on the development first and ask for funding retrospectively. The funding would be needed to keep expanding the team and continue maintenance and further improvements to PlutoFramework. It is a public good project after all.

The amount of work done during the past 8 months has been quite insane. I truly believed in the idea 8 months ago and now that I can see first results shaping in front of me, I believe in PlutoFramework even more and I am going all-in.

Mobile development, comparison, competition

List of all web3 mobile apps that come to my mind. Not counting fake3.

NovaWallet, Talisman Wallet (mobile), SubWallet (mobile)...
Polkadot app - maybe fake3??
BBB Big Ballz of Bajun

There could certainly be more mobile apps...

Is PlutoWallet dead?

Shortly, NO!

Is PlutoWallet maintained? Not really, it is not a priority at the moment. Maybe because of this, a lot of people felt that I have exploited the Polkadot Treasury (understandably) by funding a project that is not maintained anymore. People who voted for the last proposal wanted to use PlutoWallet and probably wanted to see it evolve further. I am very sorry to disappoint anyone with my decision to not focus on the maintenance now, but I think the decision to switch to developing PlutoFramework instead was better. PlutoWallet's code and UX is not ready to be used by the public in my opinion, so I do not want to waste time by maintaining something that is not used by many people. It is actually used internally, I love my PlutoWallet and I use my development version on a day-to-day basis!

Is PlutoWallet Developed? Yes, actually everyday.

So, what really happened and where is PlutoWallet now? It is worth understanding the whole vision and history behind this ambitious project.

History of PlutoWallet

In November 2022, I have been thinking of building a mobile game that would run exclusively on Substrate blockchain. One of the issues that I have encountered was that in 2022, there was no solution like WalletConnect for Polkadot (Still to this date, WalletConnect is not fully supported for substrate on all platforms). I wanted to build a proper web3 mobile app where you would connect log in with your existing wallet. In January 2023, I decided to actually attempt to implement such a WalletConnect-like solution as a hackathon project. In March 2023, Dušan and I won 2nd place at a Polkadot Hackathon in Paris organised by AngelHack. The project was known as Plutonication and alongside it, I developed a demo wallet called PlutoWallet.

After having an experience developing a mobile wallet for Polkadot, I started to notice UX/UI problems that nobody even thought of - It is hard to make a Wallet with UI that is easy to use and multichain/multiproject at the same time. You can read more in my discussion about customisable layouts. I still think that wallets like NovaWallet are quite hard to navigate and users must know that the feature they want to use is there.

My plan was to build and partner with other projects that would use PlutoWallet exclusively to ease the onboarding - When the user has a custom layout that is tailored to them, it is easier to navigate. Compared to other options, I think it was excellent idea, just a very poor execution.

What about web2 login? That surely simplifies user onboarding. Yes, it simplifies, but is it web3? Why would you even care at that point that you are using a web3 app when you do not even own your keys. The discussion about this topic is pointless in my opinion.

The issue was that other projects did not want their users to download any separate mobile wallet/browser extensions. It is not a great onboarding experience. In short, almost all of the projects that I talked with said something along these lines: "We do not want our users to download a separate app to be able to start using our dApp." That basically meant that no matter how good of a wallet I make, it will not work out the way I planned. So, all members of Pluto Labs started to brainstorm what to do about this.

In ~September 2024, we came up with the idea of PlutoFramework. I kept on developing the features that were proposed in the referenda #1076 but in my free time, I also spent the time developing the first prototype of PlutoFramework, its usage and first documentation. In November 2024, we decided to fully switch to developing PlutoFramework and not to focus on PlutoWallet exclusively. Right now, PlutoWallet development takes about ~25% of our time while PlutoFramework takes 100%. They overlap, because PlutoWallet is now built on top of PlutoFramework - Clever, right?

That means that all of the code in PlutoWallet (all of the work from January 2023 onwards) was reused for PlutoFramework! You could say that PlutoFramework has been in development for over 28 months. ^^

In January 2025, I made an agreement with Richard from Xcavate to help him make the best mobile dApp the Polkadot ecosystem has seen. Although we are still a few months away from launch (mostly slowed down by the on-chain development), it is shaping up very nicely and it is a very good team work.

PlutoFramework solves the main issue where projects do not want their users to download a separate wallet app to be able to use their dApp. They want to keep everything in one place instead. With PlutoFramework, they can build mobile dApps, where users have the hot wallet and all web3 functionalities right in the custom made app. Projects have full control over the app, they can change: design, animations, functions to display/hide, blockchains it uses, anything...

About Pluto name

I like the dwarf planet Pluto, it is small and cute, it has a heart on its surface. We could not figure out a better name, not even to this date. If you suggest a better name, we are open to rebranding. ^^

PlutoWallet's failures

I think it is important to share our bad experiences and missteps me and the rest of the Pluto Labs team made.

First failure was to not deliver Account Abstraction on-time. I would strongly argue it was not our fault entirely. I spoke many times in person with the InvArch team (mostly Dakota) about implementing this, I asked them many times if they will not let me down when I publish the proposal. And yet, they did let us down in the end. It was a lie from their side and a big disappointment to me. We still want to deliver Account Abstraction. It would be amazing to be the first ever wallet/framework with Account Abstraction in the Polkadot ecosystem. Since October, we have been in discussions with Interstellar to implement their solution instead. I hope they will not let us down.

Second failure was to develop a mobile wallet. We all realised pretty quickly that it was a lot more than just a wallet and PlutoWallet name was not a great match. It took us a few months to figure out how to fix this perception issue - PlutoFramework is our solution.

Third failure - not having extra funds to expand the team of developers. Also, kind of solved now, at the time of writing, we are 2 developers + we are onboarding 2 more and I am using my own money to pay them.

I think I must have lost a little bit of reputation because of these failures. Apart from others, I want to face them and eventually overcome them! I do not want to run away from the ecosystem like many of my other friends did and I do not want to hide these failures.

Why I chose to build on Polkadot

It was very easy to answer this in 2022 - community and amazing developer support! Like really, Polkadot was an amazing place in 2022. A lot of projects were being developed and everyone was helping each other. The multichain future seemed very friendly. And I wanted to be part of it. I wanted to also help others build amazing projects!

Over time, especially after OpenGov came, this helpfulness started to disappear. I think projects started to compete for money from the Polkadot Treasury and saw everyone else as competition that could drain the funds. I mostly noticed that with the SAGE proposal. C'mon guys, wake up, this project is really among the top 20 projects to support at the moment.

I would like to change that. I would like to live in Polkadot where everyone is helpful to each other again. I want to help others!

My POV on Hackathons

Why did I choose to participate at Polkadot Hackathons? Because it was easy. I did not have to fill in some proposals and stupid amounts of paperwork. Instead, I could just focus on the code and if the result was good, it was guaranteed that I would win the money the project deserved. For a developer like me, the format was perfect.

I do not like nowadays how other developers and projects approach these hackathons... They are building something 1 year in advance and then just go and claim a price for a work that was not done during a hackathon period. A few months later, they go and try to win again with the same project, same code... They basically exploit the hackathon system this way.

Another issue that has been popping up are completely non-functional AI generated projects. These kinds of projects have no future, their builders just want to make a quick buck and I think they should be disqualified.

Future of hackathons

I am predicting that at each hackathon (international with good prizes) from now on, there will always be at least 1 project built with PlutoFramework that will win 1 if the top 3 prizes. I am very sure of this.

PlutoFramework is amazing for building full mobile apps quickly, which is ideal for hackathon formats. All other people will struggle with figuring out the basics, but teams using PlutoFramework will get such a big advantage that it will be an easy win for them!

Organizers of Hackathons suck

Let's talk about the issue I see with each organizer of hackathons. I tried attending at least one of the hackathons organised by them, so I can judge it myself.

OneBlock+

At Hackathon 2024 in Singapore, the prizes were supposed to be 10k, 20k and 40k for 3rd, 2nd and 1st place. Instead, can you guess how much I won for the first place? Just 26k$. OneBlock+'s argument was that they requested for funds in DOT and the value of DOT decreased in the meantime. I think it is a very bad argument, they should have given the prize in DOT and tell everyone transparently how much DOT is given for each placement. Instead, it feels like they attempted a token-price lottery - if the price of DOT would increase, they would keep the rest and give only 40k$ for first place. The Polkadot community should discourage this behaviour, especially when OneBlock+ requested 30% to take as profit.

The worst part is that the winners at Bangkok hackathon also got less rewards than anticipated, even if at the time of receiving the reward, the value of DOT was up. Really good scam!

As a 2 times 1st place winner at the last 2 hackathons organised by OneBlock+, I was asked to go on a podcast and talk about my experiences.. I was told by Tracy that I would be reached out a few months later. I have not been reached out by anyone.

Afterparties that were promised were also non-existent.

I wish they will not organize any further hackathons!

Encode

The prizes at their hackathons are low. It does not encourage people to try really hard. It is like in sports, if you want to have tryharding athletes, you need to offer them big prizes to motivate them.

Otherwise, I think they are doing a good job ^^

WebZero

I do not like the format of their hackathons. Having just 2-5 days to develop something is not ideal. It might be good for very basic prototyping, but not for anything meaningful.

Otherwise, I think they are doing a good job ^^

AngelHack

Afterparties and networking at hackathons organised by AngelHack sucked.

Otherwise, I think they are doing an OK job.

Future plans with PlutoFramework & Pluto Labs

During the upcoming weeks, we will decide on exactly what to do next. Web3 summit will probably also impact our heading.

We definitely want to help more projects build amazing mobile apps with PlutoFramework
Maintain UniqueryPlus, Plutonication and Transaction Analyzer along side PlutoFramework
Add more features to PlutoFramework (to be announced later)
Help with Substrate.Net.Api and Substrate.Net.Toolchain
Develop some kind of AI tool to simplify building of mobile apps further (more on this later)
Daniel will continue organizing events + 1 hackathon in Prague
We plan to make a DAO a start participating in OpenGov (probably not me though, I need to focus on programming instead)

Final thoughts

Do you feel about Polkadot, Mobile development and Hackathons the same way as me?

Do you believe in PlutoFramework the same way as I do?

Please let me know. I am open to any feedback and discussions.