Context of the proposal

As many of you may know, at Polkadot Decoded last year (2024) Björn Wagner teased the new Polkadot App. This is a very exciting product which has been a long time in the making and plans to deliver an easy, beginner-friendly mobile wallet (and more) for newcomers to crypto and Polkadot. This product is published by the Polkadot Community Foundation (PCF).

This proposal seeks to obtain funding for the next 6 months of software development, marketing personnel, tooling and legal costs. This proposal is separate to Ref #1082 which sought for the PCF to own the IP of the Polkadot App, publish the app and to enter into third party relationships with providers where required. This is already in progress.

The funding under this proposal will allow the PCF to release the product, and progress with building future scope to improve the product over the duration of the funding. Whilst the project is behind schedule from when it was originally announced, the app is almost ready and there will be more information coming soon as to the launch date.

Previously all research, design, development and legal costs have been paid directly or indirectly by the Web3 Foundation. Many of these roles and activities will still be covered by the W3F directly or indirectly. This proposal seeks alignment with the community around the ongoing development of the product.

This proposal covers from May 2025 to October 2025

Why and who is this important for?

The Polkadot App will be a key onboarding vehicle for Polkadot, the best place for a beginner to start with Polkadot and crypto in general. 

The Polkadot App will be useful for the existing Polkadot audience and crypto sphere as well due to the ease of use and some of the unique features that the product will bring.

The Polkadot App will be a core value proposition for the Polkadot Community to onboard their friends and family and increase the number of DOT holders worldwide. 

Proposal & cost breakdown

The proposal is mostly to cover software development for the project for the next 6 months.

Allocation	Amount	% of total	Description
Software Development	$748,800	72.7%	Allocated for Novasama and external PCF Contractors
Operations	$167,000	16.2%	Allocated for PCF operations and covers a new security audit, Raise SaaS and customer service costs.
Marketing	$54,000	5.2%	Allocated for PCF contractor, a Senior Product Marketing Manager leading Polkadot App related marketing
Legal	$50,000	4.9%	Allocated for PCF legal fees and is a bucket to draw from where required
Tooling	$9,714	1.0%	Allocated for PCF tooling and covers Github and other products the PCF uses for app development

 

A full budget breakdown is available here: PCF Polkadot App Funding #01 (public)

Some activities are included in the budget but set at $0 as we envisage that some funds are better allocated from existing bounties. E.g. the marketing bounty should fund specific ad spends or engagements that support the product.

Link to the full proposal https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S3XPF2EMpFhPoirT9arsFdPn5Rou_dY0n7wNlvTVkDg/edit?pli=1&tab=t.0