Apillon’s Polkadot Bounty Proposal — Key takeaways (TL;DR)

The revamped Apillon Proposal is another step in bringing Web3 to every user and increasing the relevance of Polkadot. Here’s how.

Apillon

Jul 14, 2023 • 7 min read

Recent changes
The aim of the Proposal
The way to achieve goals
Ecosystem impact
DOT-based product governance
Proposed timeline & roadmap
Appendix: The full Apillon Proposal

As a preliminary act to the on-chain voting and encouraging community discussion, Apillon submitted an updated Proposal for Polkadot ecosystem funding to Polkassembly.

To help you navigate the Proposal’s scope, intent, and reasoning, here is the condensed version of the 56-page document.

Recent changes

First, it’s important to note that the current version of the Proposal contains updates to the initial version.

Following the feedback garnered in the past weeks and raised doubts by the community, the changes are as follows:

Proposal format changes from Treasury to Bounty curated by community-appointed curators
The total funding amount changes to 999,999 DOT to compensate for the DOT price volatility

Read more about why do these changes matter. 👇

Now, the key points of the paper.

The aim of the Proposal

Every new developer on Apillon is a new developer for Polkadot and Web3.

By becoming an open-source, common-good project, Apillon would catalyze Web3 adoption by delivering widespread access to Web3 services. Apillon Web3 services are few-click and low-code modules that abstract the complexity of Polkadot parachains into their core functionalities. They can be mixed and matched to power multi-chain Web3 products, done and deployed in minutes.

DOT-based open governance would let the Apillon community decide on future platform upgrades, including parachain integrations. This would turn Apillon into a highly user-oriented, agile, and market-relevant project.

Curated Bounty funding would reward the Apillon team for achieved milestones, both predefined and those agreed upon via governance over the dynamic integration backlog. Such a funding scheme is bound to keep the Apillon team motivated and striving for optimal results for the Web3 developer community support.

👉 Exercise your voting rights and have your say on Polkassembly
👉 Read the full Proposal on IPFS (or scroll down)

The way to achieve goals

Ecosystem Fit — Faster and Cheaper Web3 Development

Positioned above the parachain (L1) and smart contract (L2) layers, Apillon gives developers direct access to underlying infrastructure services.

The deeper-layer technologies are abstracted to ensure easier and more affordable development of Web3 solutions. This allows builders, both of Web2 and Web3, to increase productivity, accelerate their career, and contribute to the general adoption of Polkadot parachains.

Apillon positioned between the smart contracts and app layers

Parachain integrations & Web3 Services

Web3 services on the Apillon dashboard are turn-key modules that provide direct access to integrated parachains and their main functionalities.

Few-click and low-code deployment lowers the entry barrier to Web3 and focuses on developer and user experience rather than complex coding.

To date, Apillon has integrated:

Crust Network powering Web3 Storage and Web3 Hosting services
Moonbeam Network powering NFT Service
Astar Network powering NFT Service
KILT Protocol used in DID creation, soon to power Web3 Authentication service
Subsquid, blockchain indexer for parachain parsing

Payment Module

Addressing one of the major friction points of Web3 adoption — crypto asset volatility — Apillon further implements an advanced, multi-chain payment module.

This allows Apillon-built Web3 projects to scale uninterruptedly without constantly needing to supply volatile asset bags or take FX risk just to power project operations.

Apillon’s payment module can handle a high amount of cross-chain crypto transactions in a secure manner. Transactions can be created in one place and signed elsewhere to maintain the security of private keys. The module also supports the transmission and monitoring of high transactional throughput.

Centralized points and decentralized solutions

To achieve full decentralization, three currently centralized areas of Apillon would need to distribute the way they’re being managed.

Three pillars with decentralized control

Future integrations and service portfolio
The Apillon Community would govern the platform’s scope and evolution, including the dynamic integration backlog, prioritization, and future milestones.

Payments architecture and control
Dedicated custody and profit bags overseen by a decentralized committee would supply the constant flow of funds to the Apillon platform.

Development milestone delivery
Bounty funds, curated by community-appointed curators, would be disbursed to the Apillon team once the development milestones are met.

Apillon future

Price stability module
In future versions, the Apillon platform would address the challenge of product price stability with price stability pools.

Price stability pools would be supplied by parachains integrated into the Apillon platform and remain their responsibility. This would remove the risk of users managing several volatile tokens just to power Apillon-built Web3 products.

Future parachain integrations
And, to constantly remain market-relevant, Apillon would integrate more parachains and Web3 tools to expand the spectrum of Web3 services accessible to developers. These can be found in the Dynamic Integration Backlog.

Future integrations would be voted on by the community and executed in different timeframes due to varying complexity.

Ecosystem impact

As Apillon reaches wider developer audiences, it would leave a mark on the Web3 and Polkadot space, thanks to:

More application-layer products on Polkadot serving wide-range use cases
New developer influx, particularly from Web2, as a result of a lower entry barrier
Defied single- and niche-service narrative with a drag-and-drop Web3 deployment and API access, multi-chain and multi-service approach, and unified pricing for underlying parachains
Complex multi-chain use cases beyond token transfers, more liberty in building Web3 projects, and greater customization
Price stability of parachain services to ensure Web3 project scalability via liquidity pools

DOT-based product governance

Apillon governance is focused on the Apillon platform, its services, and features. The platform users can co-design its offering, prioritize the integration of parachains, and adopt Web3 technologies faster.

Apillon’s product governance touches upon all product-related decisions, including the goals preset in the Dynamic Integration Backlog as well as UI changes, UX improvements, etc.

A tighter feedback loop between voters and the Apillon team would enhance Apillon’s product-market fit and clear up backlog and development priorities.

Proposed timeline & roadmap

To ensure fast but realistic product evolution, Apillon proposes three Milestones within two years.

Milestone 1: Q4 2023

Integrations: 4 (Phala Network and KILT Protocol, Astar WASM, RMRK)
SDK and CLI: TypeScript
Smart contract offering: Moonbeam and Astar expanded
UI: Polkadot.js replaced with CAPI
Scalability/finance: Accounting module, DOT and fiat payment module
Security: Platform fixes aligned with Security Audit #1
Community: Apillon Referral program

Subsequent milestones: Q4 2024 to Q3 2025

For the following two milestones, integrations are predicted from two instances:

Apillon’s Dynamic Integration Backlog, expanded as new parachains and projects appear in the Polkadot ecosystem.
1-click-deploy projects built by Apillon to cover niche use cases (e.g., Web3 messaging service, Web3 e-commerce store, Web3 games, etc.).

Aligned with the dynamic nature of the Polkadot ecosystem, the deliverables of Milestones 2 and 3 are not predefined but depend on community vote following thorough research and proposal by the Apillon team.

Milestone 2: Q4 2024

Integrations: 5
DX: More languages SDK
Community: Admin panel
Security: Audit #2 for increased platform and user safety

Milestone 3: Q3 2025

Integrations: 8
DX: DeFi- or game-specific SDK, Cloud computing functionality
UI: Web3 analytics
Scalability/Finance: Price stability pools
Security: Audit #3

Bounty funding

The Apillon Bounty funding would serve as a reward mechanism upon milestone completion to cover both the runway and regular costs.

Spanning two years from Q3 2023 to Q3 2025, it would back the team’s effort of delivering Web3 solutions to the broadest developer audience possible.

The child bounty payouts would be managed and approved by a team of community-appointed curators upon reviewing Apillon deliverables.

It’s also important to note that the community retains the right to cancel the bounty in case the results end up not meeting expectations.

This way, Apillon places full control over its 2-year operations funding in the hands of the ecosystem, and works daily to live up to the promise of Web3 — a more inclusive, engaged, and flattened community of web builders.

DOTs put to good purpose

Lastly, food for thought. The Polkadot Treasury currently holds 46M DOT, and every 24 days, 1% of the unspent funds is burned. What if some of it was put to better use, say, to back the adoption of Web3 via a multi-chain Web3 development platform?

We can make it happen.

The Apillon Bounty Proposal is now live for voting. Go to Polkassembly and vote AYE for the future of Web3 evolution.

Appendix: Full Apillon Bounty Proposal

Eager to dive into the details? Switch your morning newspaper for the full Apillon Proposal doc. 📰

⧓ About Apillon

The Apillon platform serves as a unified gateway to the Web3 services provided by linked Polkadot parachains. Following the multi-chain vision, Apillon powers the transition of developers to Web3, simplifying its adoption in the real economy, and expanding its versatility as the ecosystem grows. With Apillon, Web3 services are within reach for every developer, regardless of their background and experience with blockchain technology.