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#1590 Gossamer: Core Contributions to Polkadot [Q3/Q4 2025]
Requested amount: 815 358 USDC
Beneficiary address: 149mJjdQjEBMHHbWDjbLJ7X4e95ps6L35DZVaBzn1raR1EVQ
Short description: Gossamer is a team dedicated to implementing the Polkadot Relay Chain Validator, which was developed using Go. As an alternative client implementation, it serves decentralization and robustness of the network by being a full node and a validator node. Ultimately, the heart of Gossamer is its team. This is not just a group of developers writing lines of code. It’s a dedicated team of Polkadot protocol engineers and Web3 enthusiasts who have a broad portfolio of projects and have spent years building toward a shared vision: the importance of creating a truly decentralized Web3 future.
Project Category/Type: Software development
GitHub: Gossamer
Website: ChainSafe
Previous treasury proposals:
Discussion post: forum.polkadot
Context of the Proposal
The Gossamer team at ChainSafe is a group of technical experts, engaging in protocol-level implementations for the Polkadot ecosystem. The team has formerly received funding from the Web3 Foundation, the Polkadot Treasury and has also been temporarily self-funded through ChainSafe.
This proposal is a request for six months of funding from the Polkadot Treasury for the continued work of the Gossamer team. The ecosystem is rapidly evolving, and a lot of change is to be expected. We are therefore adopting a six-month proposal cycle to maintain agility and responsiveness to best serve the ecosystem.
In this funding period, as detailed in Section 4.2 (Scope of Current Proposal), we will dedicate resources to critical ecosystem needs, specifically, continue building alternative implementations of Polkadot validator, JAM implementation and enhancing Collator functionality to improve Parachain resilience. We understand the team's commitment as a fundamental technological pillar for advancing the Polkadot ecosystem.
Even though this proposal describes concrete development milestones for our alternative Polkadot client, we're already weaving in bridges into the future. The team is dedicated to fundamentally accompanying and supporting the journey and development of the ecosystem, from Polkadot to Polkadot 2.0 to required JAM implementations, now and in the future.
Proposal navigation:
Contact:
- Kyrylo Pisariev, Senior Engineering Manager, kirill@chainsafe.io, @p1sar:matrix.org
- Peter Kalambet, Head of Protocol, peter@chainsafe.io, @peter:dod.ngo
- Belma Gutlic, VP of Engineering, belma@chainsafe.io, @morrigan.iv:matrix.org
Progress and Updates:
- Monthly progress reports (GitHub discussions, X)
- GitHub code progress (see insights)
- Presentations at Polkadot events
- Documentation updates (see docs)
Comments (13)
Requested
Proposal Failed
aren’t some members of the team part of the Tech Fellowship and already receiving compensation based on their ranks?
@muddlebee That's an excellent question. While some of our current and past team members are Tech Fellows holding ranks 1 through 3, their work on projects like JAM or Polkadot alternative client implementations wouldn't typically be the basis for a Fellowship salary claim. It's common for Fellows not to claim a salary because, ideally, Fellowship contributions are separate from their regular team responsibilities.
Wow, 800k for 6 months of work? The development has been ongoing since years, but how many Polkadot validators are actually using it? If none, why?
And why are you linking this to JAM? Are you planning to get funding from the treasury and the JAM prize for the same work?
There seem to be quite a few unknowns, and funding Gossamer anymore is not the best investment for the treasury.
Why don't you complete the work and onboard some validators to use Gossamer, and then ask for retroactive funding? Or at least provide some clear ROI for the previous treasury proposals made for Gossamer development.
@proofchad
Thank you for your questions. We appreciate the opportunity to clarify these points:
Our proposal provides a detailed breakdown of how these funds will be allocated. We believe our team's hourly rates are competitive and, in fact, often lower than the average for specialised development of this complexity, even when compared to rates seen in some web application development proposals.
As stated in our Scope of Work (SoW), this proposal does not request funds for JAM-specific development, as we know there is a dedicated JAM prize. We included a discussion of JAM because its relationship to our ongoing Polkadot client (Gossamer) development is one of the most common questions we've received from the community. We aim to clearly articulate how our current plans for Gossamer align with and prepare for the future JAM architecture, thereby addressing community expectations and interest in this synergy.
Direct, traditional ROI metrics are inherently challenging to apply to core protocol development, as it functions as a public good essential for the ecosystem, rather than a commercial, profit-generating venture. This type of work is almost always a non-profit effort. However, Section 4.1 of our current proposal provides details on the value delivered from previous funding.