The goal of this page is to provide an overview of the open-source Polkadot/Kusama Tech Stack. At the moment it's a work-in-progress.
This is a living document and we are relying on our community to contribute to this and help maintain it. Please feel free to make edits and additions via pull requests. We apologize if we missed your project!
The Polkadot Tech Stack is a subset of the Web 3.0 Tech Stack, which consists of the open-source technologies contributing to and relying on Polkadot, Kusama and Substrate. It is meant to be used for decentralized application (Dapp) development within many possible verticals including DeFi, Gaming, Provenance and many others not pictured below.
|------|--------|------------|
| DeFi | Gaming | Provenance |
|______|________|____________|
Dapps
|--------------------------/-|
| Explorers, Wallets / |
|------------------------/---|
| Tools, Apis, Languages/ |
|----------------------/-----|
| 2nd layer protocols / |
|--------------------/-------|
| Chains / other |
|------------------/--- --|
| *Polkadot* | tech |
|------------------\---------|
| P2P, Crypto, Wasm \ |
|--------------------\-------|
The Web3 Foundation's General Grants Program and Open Grants Program are focused on funding development work to build out all layers of the Polkadot Tech Stack. Please use the preceding links to apply for funding for relevant projects.
To get a better understanding of the projects we consider most relevant you can explore a detailed breakdown of the various layers of stack, below. We divide each of the layers into the various components which we feel are most important. We then highlight some of the exisiting projects that address these components as well as some potentially interesting projects that we would like to fund.
We typically like to fund more than one project for each component so if you see a component with 1 or 0 exisiting projects then it's likely that we would consider an application in this area. In order to consider funding a proposal that addresses a component with many existing projects then we would need to be persuaded that this proposal brought unique value to the ecosystem. Such value could be in many forms including but not limited to differentiated functionality, better user experience, the attraction of new users to the ecosystem or a high-likelihood that the technology would be maintained for a long period of time.
By describing our areas of priority in detail we do not wish to preclude grant applications that address different areas that we may not have thought of. We would like to fund all projects that bring value to the ecosystem. If you are considering applying for a project and are not sure if it falls within our areas of interest then please get in touch with us to discuss it.
In the below sections you can find a list of different layers of the Polkadot Stack.
| Components | Existing projects | Potentially interesting projects |
|---|---|---|
| Desktop Wallets | AirGap, Sakura | |
| Browser Extensions | Polkadot{.js}, Enzyme, Speckle OS | |
| Mobile Wallets | Lunie, Polkawallet, Parity Signer, imToken, Fearless Wallet Android, Fearless Wallet iOS | |
| Web (burner) Wallets | KodaDot | |
| CLI Wallet | Subwallet | |
| Multisignature Wallets | Subscan Multisig UI | |
| Hardware Wallets | Ledger, NGRAVE | Trezor |
| Block Explorers | Polkascan, Polkastats, Subscan, PSQL Indexer, Polkadothub Indexer | Mempool focused explorer (including parachain transaction) |
| Validator Dashboards | Polkacube, YieldScan, Hubble | |
| Node Explorers | Polkadot Node Explorer | |
| Governance Dashboards | Polkassembly | UI for the kusama and/or polkadot treasury (see bounty module), UI for Parachain Lease Offering (PLO) |
| Components | Existing projects | Potentially interesting projects |
|---|---|---|
| Scalable Transactions | Plasm, Celer, Gunclear | roll-ups, DAG-based consensus mechanisms, side chains |
| Bridges | Ethereum by Centrifuge, EOS by Bifrost, POA <> Substrate, Substrate <> Ethereum DAI Bridge, Substrate <> Substrate Bridge, BTC by ChainX, Cosmos-Substrate bridge, Polkadot Ethereum Bridge | ZCash |
| Privacy | ZeroChain, pLibra (Phala Network) | |
| Off-Chain | substraTEE | |
| DeFi | Katal Chain, Laminar Chain, Acala, Centrifuge, Stafi, Bandot, Definex, OAX Foundation, Cybex, Zenlink, Swaps Pallet, Polkadex, SubDEX, HydraDX | DEX with privacy and confidentiality features such as those found in a dark pool |
| Smart contract chains | moonbeam, Edgeware, EVM Module | sharded smart contract chains, smart contract chains with novel security approaches, smart contract chains based on exisiting toolchains |
| Oracle | Laminar, Katal Chain, Chainlink-polkadot, Ares Protocol | |
| Identity | Caelum Labs, Litentry | |
| IoT | Nodle, MXC/DataHighway | |
| Verifiable Claims | KILT, Dock | |
| Supply chain | Wiv | |
| Social Networking | Social Network, SubSocial | |
| Governance/DAO | Sunshine DAO, Governance OS | Consul - Open Government and E-Participation Web Software |
| Messaging | HOPR, Mailchain | |
| File Storage, Cloud | DatDot, Crust Network, offchain::ipfs | |
| Name Service | Substrate Names | |
| Gaming | Amethyst + Substrate | |
| Computation | ||
| Enable specific use-cases | Robonomics | |
| NFT | FRAME Pallet: NFTs for Substrate, NFT Parachain by usetech | |
| Licensing | ||
| Other | Substrate Open Runtime Module Library | On-chain quadratic funding (e.g. https://clr.fund/#/about) |
| Components | Existing projects | Potentially interesting projects |
|---|---|---|
| Rust | Substrate, Cumulus | |
| C++ | Kagome | |
| Go | Gossamer | |
| AssemblyScript |
| Components | Existing projects | Potentially interesting projects |
|---|---|---|
| Secure validator setup | Trutzone-based HSM | |
| High availability setup | Archipel, Polkadot Failover Mechanism | |
| Load Balanced Endpoints | terragrunt-polkadot | |
| Deployment Tools | Polkadot Package Manager, PolkaHub, Avado, Polkadot Deployer | |
| Validator monitoring | P.A.N.I.C., Polkalert, B-Harvest | |
| Validator payout management | Substrate validator auto payout, Polkadot Payouts |
| Components | Existing projects | Potentially interesting projects |
|---|---|---|
| SR25519 | rust (contains partial bindings for C, JavaScript, and Python), C (old), C (new), C/C++, C#, Go, java | |
| Easy multisig scheme | ||
| Validator HSMs | ||
| Validator HSM-like solutions |
| Components | Existing projects | Potentially interesting projects |
|---|---|---|
| DHT crawler | Go, Kotlin |
Pull requests, issues, or other contributions from the community are encouraged! You can not only add specific projects but also potentially interesting fields/areas, which are currently missing in the tech stack.
❗ All technologies listed above need to be open-source. Ideally, the links lead directly to the code.
Note: You will need a GitHub account to suggest changes or file issues. If you do not have a GitHub account, you may sign up for one for free.