Polkadot 2022 Year in Review and 2023 Outlook

In 2022, despite the cryptocurrency industry entering a winter, the Polkadot community was still busy building and launching the largest and most diverse Layer 1 blockchain ecosystem in the world, and introduced several core technologies in preparation for 2023.

The events that occurred in the Polkadot ecosystem over the past year are enough to fill a book. Let's review the important trends and milestones of Polkadot in 2022.

The Birth of the Web3 Leading Ecosystem

Since the launch of parallel chains at the end of 2021, Polkadot has become the largest and most diverse dedicated Layer 1 blockchain and application ecosystem, and it is the only ecosystem fully protected by a shared set of validators.

Currently, 74 parachains have won auctions on Polkadot or Kusama, supporting over 300 applications. Approximately 550 projects have been launched or are being developed for Polkadot, marking a remarkable start for the first year of parachain launches.

Over 200 teams have launched or built dedicated blockchains on the Polkadot tech stack. The Polkadot community has contributed over 130 million DOT and nearly 300,000 KSM through crowdloans to support parachain auctions, demonstrating great confidence in the ecosystem.

The Polkadot ecosystem encompasses all possibilities of blockchain technology, from social media to supply chains, identity, gaming, asset tokenization, carbon credits, privacy, robotics, the Internet of Things, and more.

This year's groundbreaking adoption events in the ecosystem include:

• A certain trading platform has partnered with Japan's largest mobile operator to invest $4 billion to promote Web3 adoption.
• An NFT parallel chain collaborates with a gaming giant to develop Polkadot-powered NFTs for the Final Fantasy series.
• Centrifuge leads $220 million in funding to bring real-world assets on-chain
• Manta Network has the largest trusted setup in the history of zero-knowledge technology.
• The decentralized social network protocol of Project Liberty is first deployed on Polkadot.
• KILT has reached a cooperation agreement with the German Ministry of Energy and others.

The DeFi community of Polkadot has been greatly boosted this year by the addition of Tether and USDC, as well as the launch of new exchanges.

With advantages in flexibility, scalability, upgradability, and security, Polkadot is becoming the perfect home for all-around rapidly growing Web3 opportunities.

Leading the True Decentralized Path

In 2022, Polkadot took an important step towards becoming the most decentralized, trustless, and unstoppable Web3 ecosystem.

Polkadot gradually increases its degree of decentralization and eliminates centralized bottlenecks, becoming one of the largest true DAOs in existence.

Key developments include:

• Launched the new generation governance system OpenGov, eliminating the role of the council and fully decentralizing governance.
• Launched the Polkadot Fellowship as a decentralized on-chain technical expert group.
• DOT has been recognized as a non-security by the SEC, achieving a Web3 milestone.
• Promote the industry's most advanced light client technology
• The staking system has been upgraded, reducing the minimum staking amount to 1 DOT.

Unstoppable Innovation

In 2022, Polkadot completed 15 seamless, forkless upgrades, with an unparalleled speed of innovation. So far, nearly 1,000 blockchain implementations based on Polkadot technology have achieved forkless upgrades.

Key upgrades include:

• Unlocking the XCM secure cross-chain data transfer feature in May
• The Statemint system parachain is fully operational.
• Launch the Collectives system parallel chain
• Launch Polkadot Alliance

One of the Most Active Developer Communities in Web3

The number of Polkadot developers reached a historical high in 2022, with nearly 2,500 active developers per month, second only to Ethereum.

To support the developer community:

• Substrate Builders Program guides new project launches
• The Web3 Foundation's funding program has surpassed 400 project milestones.
• The on-chain treasury pays over 4 million DOT to ecosystem projects.
• Establish a Polkadot Blockchain Academy to cultivate talent

Outlook for 2023

The key technical development focus of Polkadot in 2023 includes:

• Launch OpenGov on Polkadot
• Asynchronous support optimization, enhancing trading processing capability
• XCMv3 upgrade, enabling trustless cross-ecosystem bridging
• Introduce flexible deployment options such as parallel threads
• The Wasm smart contract ecosystem is mature

More parallel chain projects will be launched in 2023, and existing projects will also mature. The Polkadot ecosystem is just beginning, and 2023 will surely be an exciting year!