Accelerate growth and adoption across the entire Polkadot ecosystem
Beneficiary:
Dear Polkadot community,
We are excited to introduce our next initiative, focused on building comprehensive and standardized datasets and metrics for the Polkadot ecosystem. Building on the success of our first project, this initiative aims to expand distribution, and enable deeper insights for analysts, developers, and investors.
Full proposal details ➡️ [here]
1. Executive summary
A key challenge with current public Polkadot datasets is their insufficient level of standardization and depth, which limits the ability to calculate essential financial and business KPIs.
This proposal introduces two major improvements:
i) The transition from basic to standardized metrics. Our goal is to increase the depth, usability, and standardization of metrics, evolving from raw blockchain data to fully standardized financial and business KPIs for the leading parachains.
- Basic metrics (e.g. active addresses, gas used, and transaction counts, etc.) are programmatically derived from raw blockchain data. These metrics require less parachain-specific research or maintenance, as they are generated through automated processes and presented in their simplest form.
- Standardized metrics (e.g. TVL, fees, and active users, etc.) require significant transformation work by our research team. This process involves more in-depth parachain-specific research and ongoing maintenance to ensure the metrics are accurate, comparable, and aligned with established financial and business standards.
ii) Increased distribution. In addition to improving the quality and depth of metrics available on Token Terminal, this proposal also includes expanded distribution through the Google Web3 Marketplace. In practice, this means providing public access to all Polkadot data within Token Terminal’s data warehouse.
- Google Web3 Marketplace: Each parachain will have its own dataset on the marketplace, covering everything from block-level data to standardized financial and business metrics.
- Token Terminal: Each parachain’s project page will be populated with Standardized metrics (in addition to Basic metrics). Additionally, parachains will also gain visibility through Discover, Market sector boards, and datasets like Trending contracts for EVM-compatible chains.
The growth of the Polkadot ecosystem is driven by a sophisticated community of developers, analysts, researchers, and investors. By providing high-quality, standardized datasets and metrics, this initiative strengthens Polkadot’s institutional brand, positioning its native asset, DOT, as a natural inclusion in institutional portfolios and a potential target for the next ETF.
2. Background
Since launching in 2020, Token Terminal has established itself as a trusted partner in the crypto data analytics space, known for:
- Institutional credibility: First crypto data platform integrated with Bloomberg Terminal and a partner to MarketVector (VanEck subsidiary) for fundamentals-weighted crypto indexes.
- Technical excellence: Running nodes across 20+ EVM and non-EVM blockchains, managing a 400TB+ serverless data warehouse on BigQuery.
- Proven results: Our first initiative focused on creating a standardized listing for Polkadot and basic listings for 50 parachains. We are ahead of schedule, and already cover basic metrics for over 20 parachains. Additionally, Parity is adopting key datasets we developed into their internal data warehouse (DotLake).
3. Roadmap & Economics
Milestone 1 – Q1 ‘25: $351K Publish basic datasets and metrics for top 20 parachains on Google Web3 Marketplace and Token Terminal’s data platform.
Milestone 2 – Q2 ‘25: $354K Upgrade top 20 basic datasets and metrics to standardized format across both platforms.
Milestone 3 – Q3-Q4 ‘25: $300K Maintain standardized datasets and metrics for top 20 parachains across both platforms.
Total Grant Size: $1,005,000 (paid in USDT)
We look forward to your feedback and suggestions on this proposal. For more details, see the full proposal and attached deck ➡️ [here].
Thank you,
Token Terminal Team
Comments (10)
Proposal Passed
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Aye (32)0.0 DOT
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Nay (36)0.0 DOT
Comments (10)
We’re excited to support this proposal as it represents a significant step forward for the Polkadot ecosystem.
We’ve been working with Token Terminal on their initial Polkadot data integration, and they’ve consistently impressed us with their top-tier professionalism and deep commitment to understanding Polkadot from an unbiased perspective. Their fundamentals-driven approach to promoting the network is refreshing and much needed.
This proposal is unprecedented—it will unlock the rich and composable Polkadot datasets they’ve been building, making them accessible to the public and entire crypto community through Google Marketplace and BigQuery, essentially enabling seamless integration with other analytics platforms. It’s a huge move for transparency and collaboration, and it will help showcase Polkadot’s strengths to a wider audience. Massive respect to the Token Terminal team for their vision and dedication!
$1M is a substantial ask at this phase, especially for a startup focused on standardizing a data set. The proposed team structure — such as assigning two people per role at the onset — feels excessive and misaligned with the lean, resource-conscious approach typically expected in early-stage projects. A more streamlined structure could achieve the same goals efficiently, for example:
1x Data Lead (CTO): Define strategy and oversee the technical roadmap.
1x Data Engineer: Build and maintain the necessary data pipelines, sufficient for initial requirements.
1x Data Analyst: Validate, analyze, and derive insights from the data.
1x Site Reliability Engineer (optional): Manage infrastructure stability if necessary.
This leaner team ensures resources are allocated wisely while delivering measurable results. Overstaffing at this stage risks inflating costs without a proportional increase in output.
It’s important to highlight that only 1/4th of the proposed funding is allocated to infrastructure costs, meaning the vast majority of the request is intended to build out the team for your for-profit company. For context, in the startup world, early-stage or seed funding is typically focused on proving the concept, building a minimum viable product (MVP), and demonstrating market fit—often with a small, scrappy team working efficiently to achieve maximum impact. Budgets at this stage are usually lean and prioritized toward direct value creation.
In contrast, this proposal asks for a substantial allocation toward staffing multiple roles, many of which appear redundant for an early-stage project. Such an approach is unusual for a startup seeking initial funding, especially when using community resources. Given the lack of a proven track record or a clear roadmap for significantly advancing Polkadot or delivering tangible ecosystem benefits, this funding request seems premature and disproportionate.
Hiring and scaling should be done prudently, with the goal of achieving milestones that justify further investment. Allocating such a large portion of community funds to team building—before demonstrating measurable progress or validating the project’s usefulness—risks misusing resources without delivering results.
Given these concerns, a more cautious approach — such as reducing redundant positions and implementing phased funding tied to the proposed milestone achievements — would be more appropriate than requesting 100% upfront before any work is completed. This ensures accountability and provides the opportunity to demonstrate progress before committing additional community resources.
This feedback is shared with the hope of helping refine the proposal and increasing its chances of success while being mindful of the community's interests.
We’re excited to support this proposal as it represents a significant step forward for the Polkadot ecosystem.
We’ve been working with Token Terminal on their initial Polkadot data integration, and they’ve consistently impressed us with their top-tier professionalism and deep commitment to understanding Polkadot from an unbiased perspective. Their fundamentals-driven approach to promoting the network is refreshing and much needed.
This proposal is unprecedented—it will unlock the rich and composable Polkadot datasets they’ve been building, making them accessible to the public and entire crypto community through Google Marketplace and BigQuery, essentially enabling seamless integration with other analytics platforms. It’s a huge move for transparency and collaboration, and it will help showcase Polkadot’s strengths to a wider audience. Massive respect to the Token Terminal team for their vision and dedication!
$1M is a substantial ask at this phase, especially for a startup focused on standardizing a data set. The proposed team structure — such as assigning two people per role at the onset — feels excessive and misaligned with the lean, resource-conscious approach typically expected in early-stage projects. A more streamlined structure could achieve the same goals efficiently, for example:
1x Data Lead (CTO): Define strategy and oversee the technical roadmap.
1x Data Engineer: Build and maintain the necessary data pipelines, sufficient for initial requirements.
1x Data Analyst: Validate, analyze, and derive insights from the data.
1x Site Reliability Engineer (optional): Manage infrastructure stability if necessary.
This leaner team ensures resources are allocated wisely while delivering measurable results. Overstaffing at this stage risks inflating costs without a proportional increase in output.
It’s important to highlight that only 1/4th of the proposed funding is allocated to infrastructure costs, meaning the vast majority of the request is intended to build out the team for your for-profit company. For context, in the startup world, early-stage or seed funding is typically focused on proving the concept, building a minimum viable product (MVP), and demonstrating market fit—often with a small, scrappy team working efficiently to achieve maximum impact. Budgets at this stage are usually lean and prioritized toward direct value creation.
In contrast, this proposal asks for a substantial allocation toward staffing multiple roles, many of which appear redundant for an early-stage project. Such an approach is unusual for a startup seeking initial funding, especially when using community resources. Given the lack of a proven track record or a clear roadmap for significantly advancing Polkadot or delivering tangible ecosystem benefits, this funding request seems premature and disproportionate.
Hiring and scaling should be done prudently, with the goal of achieving milestones that justify further investment. Allocating such a large portion of community funds to team building—before demonstrating measurable progress or validating the project’s usefulness—risks misusing resources without delivering results.
Given these concerns, a more cautious approach — such as reducing redundant positions and implementing phased funding tied to the proposed milestone achievements — would be more appropriate than requesting 100% upfront before any work is completed. This ensures accountability and provides the opportunity to demonstrate progress before committing additional community resources.
This feedback is shared with the hope of helping refine the proposal and increasing its chances of success while being mindful of the community's interests.