Overview

The full details of our proposal can be viewed here: Full Proposal on Google Docs.

1.1 Proposal Details

Proponents: Ross Bulat and Joel Kenny
Beneficiary Address: 13MNarAqpNkginnQb6gTNq2QnieZGs2SKu8JdK9LLxo6ksEP
Requested Amount: $82,000 USDT
Funding Period: January 2025 to June 2025 (6 months)
Planned Referendum Start Date: 3rd January 2025

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We are pleased to present our proposal for continued development of the Polkadot Staking Dashboard for Q1-Q2 2025. Having successfully completed our previous milestones (verified via OG Tracker), we're confident the Dashboard is well-positioned for its next phase of development.

After careful consideration of community feedback and recent ecosystem developments, we have decided to focus this funding effort exclusively for the Staking Dashboard. This allows us to concentrate our resources on maintaining and enhancing this critical infrastructure serving a well-engaged user base.

Key points for this proposal:

1. 6-month timeframe to provide clearer deliverables and reduced treasury risk
2. Funding requested in USDT stablecoin per community preference
3. Focused development roadmap targeting user experience and critical network upgrades
4. Strengthened team structure with dedicated support channels and enhanced community engagement
5. Continued commitment to open-source development and community engagement

What This Means For Users:

1. Easier staking: Simpler interfaces for both direct staking and nomination pools
2. Better rewards tracking: Enhanced features to monitor and collect staking rewards
3. Mobile-friendly updates: Improved experience on phones and tablets
4. Expanded language support: Adding Spanish translations to join existing Mandarin support, making staking more accessible globally
5. Faster loading times: Technical improvements for better performance
6. More secure staking: Enhanced error prevention and user guidance
7. Enhanced support: New dedicated staking support email and Discord channel for rapid assistance
8. Improved documentation: Restructured Resources section with a clear separation between basic and advanced features

1.2 Key Project Objectives

The Polkadot Staking Dashboard has become a cornerstone of network participation. Our objectives for Q1-Q2 2025 focus on:

1. Improving staking accessibility and user experience. We are tackling this by streamlining the UI by minimising steps in flows, and rolling out a dedicated GraphQL plugin we’ve called the Staking API, that provides instant historical staking data. See Staking API Announcement on X.
2. Implementing Plaza upgrade support. Staking (and governance) will soon be migrated to AssetHub; and Staking Dashboard needs to be refactored to support this migration to stay functional. This is a critical, high priority action item of this proposal.
3. Supporting nomination pool bonding migration (migrating bonded pool funds to account locks), providing UI that allows users to see their nomination pool locks.
4. Enhancing network security through broader staking participation.
5. Maintain support for Smoldot and Polkadot API.

1.3 Project Vision

The Staking Dashboard aims to be the most accessible and reliable platform for Polkadot network participation.

Our vision encompasses:

1. Simplified staking processes for users of all experience levels
2. Dramatically speeding up dashboard sync times by utilising our blazing fast Staking API plugin
3. Robust support for network upgrades and features
4. Enhanced user education and support
5. Global accessibility through multi-language support

Deliverables

2.1 Staking Dashboard Enhancements

High-Level Staking Dashboard Objectives:

1. Enhance User Experience: Streamline key staking flows utilising our latest Staking API, community feedback and improved UI design. Flows of interest include nominator setup, managing nominations, joining a pool, and destroying a pool
2. Maintain Core Infrastructure: Support network upgrades, security patches, and API transitions
3. Expand Features: Add portfolio analytics, validator tools, and reward optimization features
4. Improve Accessibility: Integrate educational resources and risk assessment tools while maintaining advanced options.

While we maintain detailed internal timelines, we avoid rigid public deadlines given Polkadot's evolving ecosystem and upcoming network upgrades. This approach lets us prioritize the most impactful features while remaining responsive to:

1. Network upgrades and technical requirements
2. Community feedback and user needs
3. New staking mechanisms and features
4. Security considerations and best practices.
5. Deliverables Breakdown:

Support “Plaza” upgrades in relation to staking as they are deployed

Plaza is a major refactor that brings chain logic, including staking and nomination pools, from the Relay Chain to the AssetHub system chain. Staking dashboard will, therefore, need to be updated to support this migration by supporting AssetHub as an additional chain.

Support nomination pool bonding migration

Ensure the pool bonding mechanism stays intact amid the nomination pool bonding migration, that allows users to maintain voting rights while staked to a pool, Kusama and Polkadot migration is yet to be activated.

Prior to this migration, nomination pool members (and owners) must transfer their funds to the nomination pool’s stash address in order to participate. By doing this, it is no longer possible for members to vote in OpenGov. This migration fixes this shortcoming.

Streamline wallet connection interface

Implement unified connect interface to simplify wallet connections and reduce UI complexity. This action item will simplify Staking Dashboard’s wallet connection flow.

Layout plans to sunset the need for staking support in JS Apps

Provide comprehensive migration guides and tools to help users transition from JS Apps staking to the Dashboard, ensuring continuity of user experience and feature parity.

Improve application architecture

Provide an intuitive API to interact with all supported chains connected on the dashboard. E.g. have the same bootstrapping of network consts & configs for AssetHub and People Chain as the Relay Chain. Critical for enabling transaction submission on AssetHub.

Continued support of general dependency updates / refactors as dependencies roll out / breaking changes

Critical to keep Staking Dashboard up to date using industry-standard dependencies as they are updated.

Introduce "Easy Mode" staking setup with additional educational content

Create a simplified onboarding flow for new users that focuses on essential information and basic staking concepts. Advanced features and technical data will be optional/hidden to prevent information overload.

Speed up and streamline one click pool joining

Move one-click pool joining syncing from node to Staking API that will provide all the necessary data to join a pool in one query. Currently, it can take a long time to sync multiple era data to determine pool performance with the light client / RPC node.

Rewards calculator

Rewards calculator: Interactive tool to estimate potential returns

Share / invite links

Enable validators/pools to create direct nomination links

Improved nomination management

Managing nominations can be improved in a number of ways, including allowing searching of validators directly in the UI, introducing filters such as only selecting validators within a commission threshold, and more intuitive UI, such as showing selection boxes by default, and allowing inline removal of validators.

Resources section overhaul

Restructure documentation into tiered learning paths with: - Essential guides for new users - Advanced documentation for power users - Clear navigation between basic/advanced features - Improved searchability and organization.

Improved multi-language support

With approximately 30% of our users coming from Spanish-speaking regions, we will expand our language support to include Spanish translations, building on our existing Mandarin localization. This expansion of interface, documentation, and educational resources reflects our commitment to global accessibility.

GraphQL Staking API plugin growth

Continue the rollout of Staking API GraphQL plugin, that is playing a role of dramatically speeding up the staking dashboard.

Readers can test the Staking API directly on Apollo’s GraphQL Sandbox: https://studio.apollographql.com/sandbox/explorer?endpoint=https://api.staking.polkadot.cloud

Continued Staking Dashboard hosting at https://staking.polkadot.cloud

Serving as the primary staking interface for the Polkadot ecosystem.

2.2 Significance to Polkadot's Security

The Staking Dashboard plays a vital role in Polkadot's ecosystem by:

1. Providing an intuitive gateway for users to participate in network security
2. Supporting both direct staking and nomination pools
3. Ensuring smooth transitions during network upgrades
4. Offering comprehensive staking education and guidance
5. Maintaining open-source code for ecosystem transparency
6. Broadening global accessibility through strategic language expansion, with Spanish joining Mandarin to serve our diverse user base

2.3 Development Framework

Our development approach prioritizes:

1. Regular community updates and feedback cycles
2. Flexibility to adapt to network upgrades and requirements
3. Focus on security and stability
4. Clear progress tracking via GitHub
5. Responsive bug fixes and support

We structure development while maintaining flexibility for critical updates and community needs. This ensures steady progress while allowing us to adapt to ecosystem changes and user feedback.

All code remains open source, enabling community review and contribution.

Team

For detailed team information, visit the Full Proposal: Team section.

Community Engagement and Feedback

For detailed plans on community engagement and contributions, visit the Full Proposal: Community Engagement and Feedback section.

Budget

For detailed budgetting, visit the Full Proposal: Budget section.

Conclusion

This proposal seeks $82,000 USDT to enhance the Polkadot Staking Dashboard over six months (January-June 2025). Having recently completed our outstanding commitments and with a well-engaged user base, our focused roadmap aims to:

1. Support critical network upgrades as they roll out, like reduced unbonding times and Plaza integration
2. Improve staking accessibility with streamlined UI and multi-language features
3. Implement new pool creation and destroying mechanisms for better user control
4. Further roll out Staking API to turbo charge dashboard speed and reliability.

The Staking Dashboard has established itself as essential infrastructure for Polkadot's network security. Our streamlined six-month timeline and concentrated scope demonstrate our commitment to delivering tangible value while minimizing treasury risk.

We invite the community to support this proposal and help us continue making staking more accessible to all Polkadot users.

Questions? Comments? Give us your feedback below!

Kind Regards,

Ross Bulat & Joel Kenny