Who is doubling down on Polkadot? HIC announces a new round of investment, Bifrost × Hydration drive DeFi institutionalization against the trend!

July is a month worth marking for the Polkadot community.

Inside the Berlin Funkhaus venue, the atmosphere was buzzing as Gavin Wood introduced PoP, JAM, and zkJAM.

At the same time, HIC finalized the first round of investment agreements with four “hidden gem” ecosystem projects, with $1.2 million about to be injected into early-stage teams.

In Hong Kong, senior government officials and PolkaPort East repeatedly confirmed the details of the “Polkadot × Hong Kong” strategic cooperation plan—a key step in bringing Polkadot into Asia’s financial center.

On-chain, Bifrost’s vDOT liquidity surged within just one week, and the GigaDOT product, in collaboration with Hydration, attracted more and more institutional players.

On the development side, the New JAMneration team is focused on building cross-language runtime modules, making JAM a decentralized cloud infrastructure where “any language can run.”

In this July PolkaWorld roundtable, we break down the sources of this heat for you—whether it’s technical upgrades, capital deployment, governance innovation, or market opportunities, here you’ll find the first-hand perspectives you want to know.

Keep reading to see more!

Kristen: Hello everyone, welcome to the July PolkaWorld roundtable. July is a very important month, with the Web3 Summit successfully held in Berlin. Gavin released some major news that could completely change our understanding of Web3 and its future direction. Today, we’ll be diving deep into these topics.

In today’s discussion, we’ll explore how PoP could change the entire landscape, the new token economic model, its impact on the treasury, its effect on ecosystem projects, and a question everyone cares about: where will the released DOT tokens actually flow? Stay tuned, we have lots of topics worth discussing! First, let’s meet today’s guests. Please briefly introduce yourselves and your background. Filippo, you go first.

Filippo: Thanks for the invitation, I’m very happy to be here. I’m Filippo, a technical educator at the Web3 Foundation. My main responsibilities are maintaining and updating documentation, giving external talks, and interacting with the community to help everyone better understand the ecosystem. This year, I also participated in PBA’s learning program, and now I support PBA’s courses as an instructor. That’s about it.

YC: Hi everyone, I’m YC, CTO of New JAMneration, mainly responsible for coding and development. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a message in the chat room and we’ll reply as soon as possible.

Max: Hello everyone, it’s great to be back in the PolkaWorld livestream. I’m always happy to join. I currently represent both Harbor Industrial Capital and PolkaPort East, and today I’ll share some updates from both organizations—lots of progress, so please stay tuned for my updates.

Tyrone: Hi everyone, I’m Tyrone from Bifrost. Bifrost is the liquidity staking parachain in Polkadot, and we’re deploying using Coretime Nodes. Glad to be here, thank you all!

HIC Locks in Polkadot “Hidden Gem Projects”, First Round Investment List Announced

Kristen: July has been a big month for HIC. You attended the Web3 Summit, submitted a proposal last week to promote strategic cooperation between the PCF (Polkadot Community Foundation) and the Hong Kong Investment Promotion Office, and today you just announced—HIC’s second fund has completed investments in four high-potential projects. I’m sure the audience can’t wait to hear the details. Can you walk us through these key developments?

Max: Of course! I had to be here today because we just officially released the first batch of investments from our second fund through news agencies, and it’s already been reported by CoinDesk, Cointelegraph, and many mainstream crypto media outlets.

In this round, we invested in four projects, totaling $1.2 million: Kylix, Mandala Chain, Hyperbridge, and Xcavate. Regular viewers of PolkaWorld livestreams should be familiar with them—they’ve all been guests before and are our “old friends.”

From Harbor Industrial Capital’s perspective, our investment strategy always focuses on early-stage, high-growth projects, and these four fit that standard perfectly. I won’t go into detail about each project today—that’s for the project teams to showcase. But I can say clearly that $1.2 million is a considerable amount for early-stage projects, and their growth potential is huge. While this isn’t investment advice, we do invest with the goal of generating returns for our LPs, which include the Web3 Foundation.

In fact, contact with these four investments began half a year ago, with a long negotiation process in between, including details like valuation and investment amounts. Being able to officially announce it today is an important milestone for us. More importantly, this is just the first batch of investments from the second fund. In the future, we’ll continue to invest in more high-quality projects deeply rooted in the Polkadot ecosystem.

I believe that the Polkadot ecosystem may gradually reduce its reliance on grants and instead support project development more through venture capital. HIC also hopes to be a leader in this direction, continuously seeking truly valuable and promising teams and supporting them at critical stages of their development.

So, I’d also like to take this opportunity to say to all developers building on Polkadot and seeking funding: come talk to us. We’d love to learn about your project. These four cases today are the best proof that we take investment seriously. Of course, the specific investment size still depends on the project’s maturity and potential.

In short, we’ll continue to invest actively and are full of confidence in the future of the Polkadot ecosystem. I believe there are still many undervalued “hidden gem projects” in this ecosystem doing amazing things quietly, just not getting enough attention yet. Our goal is to discover them as early as possible and help them grow at key moments! That’s our mission as a venture capital fund.

“Polkadot × Hong Kong” Strategic Cooperation Imminent, Key Proposal Launched!

Kristen: Great, that sounds awesome. Would you like to talk about the proposal you just mentioned?

Max: Of course! But this time I need to switch hats! Just now I was speaking on behalf of Harbor Industrial Capital, but now I’m putting on my PolkaPort East “hat.” I really should have brought a hat to switch on camera, haha.

This proposal is very important to us and makes me very excited. As you know, I’ve lived in Hong Kong for many years and already consider it my second home. Together with Vincent and Thibault, we’re advancing the PolkaPort East project, which is an ecosystem growth and investor relations (IR) program focused on Hong Kong and serving Polkadot.

Over the past year, our communication with the Hong Kong government has progressed smoothly, mainly liaising with OASES (Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises), a high-level government agency directly under the Financial Secretary of Hong Kong. The Financial Secretary’s position in Hong Kong is equivalent to the “Minister of Finance.” OASES’ responsibility is to attract global strategic enterprises to settle in Hong Kong, and our goal is to have Polkadot recognized by the Hong Kong government as such a “strategic enterprise,” securing more opportunities for ecosystem landing and development.

Now, we’ve reached a very critical point—the Hong Kong government is ready to sign a cooperation agreement and has clearly expressed its willingness to cooperate with Polkadot. But the problem is, “Polkadot” itself is not a legal entity, so the government doesn’t know who to sign the agreement with. We initially considered Parity Technologies, but it’s essentially a tech development company and doesn’t represent the whole of Polkadot. The Foundation has the qualifications, but due to its positioning and charter, this type of strategic cooperation isn’t usually within its scope.

So, we thought of solving this through the PCF (Polkadot Community Foundation). As a legal entity that can represent the Polkadot DAO, PCF is qualified to sign such agreements. The proposal we initiated on OpenGov is to set up a local PCF subsidiary in Hong Kong to meet OASES’ requirements. The government has made it clear that it must be a locally registered Hong Kong company—entities registered in places like the Cayman Islands do not meet their investment promotion criteria.

It’s worth mentioning that this proposal does not involve operating expenses; the budget only covers legal-related costs—including registration and lawyer fees. Yes, hiring lawyers is indeed expensive, but that’s the real cost, and we have no financial gain in this. Our motivation is simple: to promote the Polkadot ecosystem and seize this rare opportunity in Hong Kong. We sincerely hope the community will support this proposal.

Kristen: Awesome! If you support or have any comments, please check it out and participate in the vote. As a DV, PolkaWorld has already voted in favor.

If any projects want to connect with HIC, you can contact them directly via private message or through PolkaWorld—we’re also a member of the HIC Advisory Board. Seeing so much activity from HIC lately is truly inspiring! Thank you, Max.

Max: Thank you for PolkaWorld’s support, I really appreciate it!

PoP and zkJAM Debut in Berlin: Polkadot Upgrades Need Time to Mature, But the Future Is Promising

Kristen: We know both Max and Filippo attended this Web3 Summit in person, while PolkaWorld unfortunately couldn’t make it to Berlin, so we’re especially eager to hear your impressions. What was your overall impression of the summit? What were the main topics discussed? What did you gain? Filippo, you go first.

Filippo: Sure. This was special for me because it was my first time attending the Web3 Summit—I missed the previous ones. This time, I was a hackathon judge, and the experience was great. The Subzero team did a fantastic job organizing it. The hackathon even had a dedicated Kusama track, focusing on zero-knowledge proofs (ZK), proof of personhood, and social platform directions, with overall high project quality.

The main venue was Berlin’s Funkhaus, which has a strong sense of history and was also the site of the first Web3 Summit. Back then, Gavin Wood used a newly bought MacBook to launch a brand-new blockchain live on stage—that was in 2018.

I attended all the talks on the first day, especially Gavin’s presentation, and the venue was almost full. He focused on JAM, zkJAM, and potential directions for Polkadot’s development. Although these are still in early stages and the concrete implementation in the next 6–12 months is not yet determined, they’ve already sparked widespread discussion in the community.

During the summit, the Web3 Foundation also announced some important personnel changes, such as establishing the new VP of Ecosystem position, with Bill Laboon taking the role. This could mean new changes in the foundation’s ecosystem strategy, communication, and growth direction.

I want to remind everyone that Polkadot is the core main chain project, and JAM is a major technical upgrade. You can learn about its positioning and role in the updated official documentation and the JAM section of the Polkadot Wiki. Although upgrades take time to mature, it’s truly exciting. In the short term, Polkadot still has some upcoming upgrades, such as:

• Elastic Scaling and Polkadot 2.0, allowing parachains to rent more main chain computation and security resources as needed;
• Polkadot Hub launching EVM smart contracts to attract Solidity developers into the ecosystem.

Overall, the summit maintained the Web3 Summit’s tradition of openness, attracting many industry leaders and technical experts from outside the ecosystem to share blockchain development trends. I was very satisfied with the experience and thank the Web3 Foundation and volunteers for their efforts.

HIC Calls for Professional Investment Bounties for the Polkadot Treasury

Kristen: Thanks for sharing! PolkaWorld also attended the first Web3 Summit, and it was indeed an inspiring experience. So, Max, what are your thoughts?

Max: Absolutely! I even wore my Web3 Summit T-shirt today, which has a phrase on the back—“Less Trust, More Truth.” I think this is not only Polkadot’s core philosophy but also fits the spirit of the Web3 Summit.

The three-day schedule was very tight—we were networking, meeting people, and discussing from morning till night. Except for PolkaWorld not being there, almost everyone from the ecosystem was present, haha, with friends from the Americas, Asia, and Europe. The atmosphere was very lively.

In terms of takeaways, besides Gavin’s speech (we’ll discuss the inflation and DOT supply mechanism proposals later), another thing that impressed me was the governance topic, especially the “bounty mechanism” discussion. Many people now complain that there are too many OpenGov proposals and the process is messy, with every proposal requiring a public discussion, which actually reduces efficiency. In this situation, letting professionals handle professional matters becomes very necessary.

For example, the Marketing Bounty is a successful case—previously, proposals like “sponsoring an event” required everyone to vote, but now a professional group evaluates them more efficiently. The same approach can be extended to:

• Meetup Bounty: global community meetups
• Events Bounty: conferences, expos, and other events
• DeFi Onboarding Bounty: connecting with exchanges, liquidity providers, custodians, etc.

These bounty teams are led by curators with relevant experience, who understand the industry and can professionally judge the feasibility of proposals. But there’s still a gap in one area: investments.

The question is: Should the DAO represent the ecosystem in investing in projects built on Polkadot? If so, how? Should every investment be voted on by everyone, or should there be a similar “investment bounty mechanism” where a professional team screens them? These questions were repeatedly raised at the summit.

On the second day, we also attended a small discussion called Note Space, where everyone sat in a circle brainstorming—many were deeply involved in governance. We had great conversations with the Web3 Foundation, Parity, and people from various verticals. Although there’s no conclusion yet on the investment governance mechanism, I think it’s one of the most noteworthy topics besides Gavin’s speech.

Kristen: I completely agree. As a DV, PolkaWorld has reviewed hundreds of proposals in recent months, and sometimes it takes us hours to understand a technical proposal, even with GPT’s help. If we can bring in professional teams to review proposals in more areas in the future, the efficiency of proposal reviews will increase significantly. We’re also looking forward to seeing the “investment bounty mechanism” implemented in the treasury soon.

Bifrost Grows 25% Against the Trend in July, Partners with Hydration to Drive Institutional Participation in Polkadot DeFi

Kristen: Okay, let’s talk about Bifrost. Bifrost is definitely one of the star projects in the Polkadot ecosystem, and what’s most impressive is your consistent growth. Especially in July, Bifrost achieved over 25% growth, going against the market trend and outperforming the market. Tyrone, can you share how you achieved this?

Tyrone: Thanks for the invitation! I’m happy to share this milestone, and honestly, it’s the result of joint efforts from multiple teams. First, special thanks to HIC (Harbor Industrial Capital), who helped us connect with Hydration from the very beginning. Max and Thibault also acted as bridges, helping us connect with many institutional clients and ecosystem partners.

At the same time, we’ve also attracted attention from DeFi projects outside the Polkadot ecosystem, such as partners from Ethereum, giving us opportunities to further expand our product line. We’re also exploring liquid staking scenarios on Ethereum. We’ve been working with Hydration for several months, even a year, and together we launched our flagship collaborative product—GigaDOT.

This product uses our Bifrost-issued liquid staking token vDOT as collateral and is a major collaboration in the entire DeFi ecosystem. If you count active projects in Polkadot’s DeFi scene, besides us (Bifrost) and Hydration, there aren’t many, so we need to make this “flagship collaboration” solid, letting users and institutions see the potential of Polkadot DeFi.

Recently, we’ve established relationships with some institutional investors who are seriously considering how to use DOT assets more efficiently through GigaDOT to achieve better leverage and returns. This influx of institutional interest is a very positive signal for the entire Polkadot DeFi ecosystem.

Looking ahead, once Polkadot Hub launches, we’ll see the arrival of precompile functionality, which will inspire developers to build protocol clients and further stimulate on-chain liquidity, enhancing user flexibility.

That’s what I wanted to share, thank you all.

Kristen: Great, thank you very much. There are also some incentive campaigns running on Bifrost now, so I suggest everyone pay attention to Bifrost and seize these opportunities.

New JAMneration: Building “Cloud Infrastructure” for Web3, Enabling Any Language to Run on JAM

Kristen: Next, let’s move on to the segment many viewers have been looking forward to—YC and her New JAMneration. JAM has been very hot in the Polkadot ecosystem recently, naturally sparking curiosity about related projects. YC, can you share New JAMneration’s recent progress and milestones?

YC: Of course! Our vision is to build a “cloud” for Web3 similar to Azure or AWS—except this time, the infrastructure is decentralized. To this end, we’re building a complete set of JAM protocol components, including PVM, STF, network modules, node implementations, and more.

Currently, we’ve basically completed all implementations for the gray paper version 0.7.1 (although fuzz testing is still at version 0.6.6), and the first milestone is almost done. Next, our focus is on improving the JAM MVP development roadmap and advancing a core functional module—recompile.

This module’s function is to translate machine code into bytecode, enabling JAM to support more programming languages. Whether it’s Rust, Go, or any language that can compile to RISC-V architecture code, it will be able to run directly on JAM in the future. You could say that our core work on the PVM part is to build this cross-language runtime capability for JAM.

Kristen: Wow, that’s so cool! If you want to learn more, you can follow YC—she also livestreams the development process.

YC: Yes, we livestream regularly, so if you’re interested, feel free to check it out.

Original video:

This article is the first part of the PolkaWorld livestream summary. The second part will be published tomorrow! Follow PolkaWorld to get the latest Polkadot news as soon as possible!