What’s New on Polkadot in September

Polkadot Governance Invests $1 Million in Kampela

Through Polkadot’s OpenGOV, roughly $1 million in DOT is being used to fund Kampela.

Kampela is a physical cold-pressed signing device, and is the first fully DAO-backed hardware project in the Polkadot ecosystem. The product devkit is currently available for preorder for 30 DOT, or roughly $130.

The “no-wifi, no bluetooth, no battery, and no ports” device allows for transaction data to be generated through a non-custodial wallet, but then passed through to your Kampela device via a near-field communication (NFC) tag. NFC-focused integration eliminates USB-based security vulnerabilities.

Tie Terminal adds Polkadot Ecosystem to its data toolset

Information and data terminal, The Tie has added the Polkadot ecosystem into its platform.

The Tie’s new Polkadot Ecosystem Dashboard provides aggregated and illustrated metrics and insights into Polkadot. The dash allows users to track the growth within the ecosystem and individually analyze each active parachain, its dApps, and its native tokens.

Tyler Fleischer of The Tie wrote, “The Polkadot Ecosystem Dashboard is designed to provide users with a holistic view of the network's performance, making it easier to track developments, analyze trends, and explore the diverse projects within the Polkadot ecosystem.”

Dune Adds Support for 50+ Polkadot Parachains

Dune Analytics, one of the most commonly used platforms for onchain analytics, announced the integration of Polkadot’s parachains. The addition of these parachains will allow for both official teams and independent analysts to explore, create, and share datasets for the Polkadot ecosystem.

Prior to this implementation, Dune only featured Polkadot, Kusama, and a few select parachains. This expansion will create more clarity around the behavior and development of lesser-known parachains.

Some of the notable additions to Dune include Moonbeam, Acala, Phyos and Mythos, which each deliver their own unique niches such as DeFi, DePIN, AI, and gaming.

Hyperbridge Raises $2.5 million to further blockchain interoperability on Polkadot

On Sept 11, Hyperbridge announced a successful funding round led by Web3 Foundation and Scytale Digital to build “the endgame of interoperability”.

The round amounted to $2.5 million total, which will be used to further develop the performance and security of their cross-chain bridge, which are often a target for hackers and malicious actors.

Hyperbridge, which is exclusively built on Polkadot, inherits its security from Polkadot’s base chain, known as the Relay chain, to ensure its safety. In the announcement thread, the protocol says, “The solution lies in scaling onchain computation through verifiable offchain computation. Hyperbridge pioneers a ground-breaking architecture for scalable & cost-effective verifiable computing: Cryptoeconomic Coprocessors”.

“The new ecosystem fund makes its first move. @hyperbridge_ will be a crucial part of @Polkadot's interoperability infrastructure going forward” said Web3 Foundation CEO, Fabian Gompf.

EasyA, the Developer Education Platform hits 1 million Downloads

One of the world’s top developer education platforms, EasyA, has now reached over 1 million downloads via iOS and Android operating systems.

Notably for Polkadot, over 100,000 developers have learned about the ecosystem through EasyA. The education platform took to social media to respond to the claim and said, “Huge wave of devs coming to @Polkadot via EasyA”.

The app provides aspiring developers with the tools and resources needed to start as beginners and often sponsors hackathons with five to six-figure prize pools.