A round-up of what’s new in the Polkadot universe, September 14 - 20, 2020

Polkadot News

See the first inter-chain asset transfer using the new XCM protocol. https://twitter.com/gavofyork/status/1304849064891158528

Three Treasury proposals were recently authorized (7 - Centrifuge, 8 - Polkascan, 9-Encointer). https://polkadot.js.org/apps/#/treasury

With 16 tips waiting for authorization, there have been discussions on how to limit the amount of tips that can be proposed. https://polkadot.js.org/apps/#/treasury/tips

The Polkadot network has been upgraded to runtime v23. If you want to upgrade your node, the build is at: https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot/releases/tag/v0.8.23

If you are having trouble with your Ledger, this is most likely due to the recent Polkadot runtime upgrade (above). A fix is incoming.

Polkadot Referendum #2 (which would increase the number of validators from 197 to 236) did NOT pass. https://polkadot.polkassembly.io/referendum/2

There is a new active referendum, #4, but no information has been added to Polkassembly to explain it. https://polkascan.io/polkadot/democracy/referendum/4

The max number of nominators before a validator is oversubscribed has been increased to 256 on Polkadot, 128 on Kusama. This change will be seen in the next runtime upgrade. https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot/pull/1668

Due to lack of information provided on Referendum #4, it has been cancelled by the Polkadot Council. https://polkascan.io/polkadot/transaction/0xd8c0d32cda9556fb05a6ef774ccb61fb66a00620d5ba8c6323ba35f597785bb7

There are now 18 tips proposed on Polkadot. https://polkadot.js.org/apps/#/treasury/tips

The Parachain Auctions page on the Polkadot Wiki has been updated with more fundamental information about what parachain auctions are for and how they will work. https://wiki.polkadot.network/docs/en/learn-auction

Upcoming runtime v24: Upgrade priority is Medium. https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot/releases/tag/v0.8.24

This article explains in-depth how Treasury Proposals are made along with details of the first four recipients on Polkadot. https://polkadot.network/writing-history-the-first-teams-submit-their-proposal-to-the-polkadot-treasury-2/

Polkadot binaries are now available via Debian- and RPM-based package managers. https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot#installation

Tips and Tricks

Polkadot supports multi-signature accounts. https://wiki.polkadot.network/docs/en/learn-accounts#multi-signature-accounts

Are you interested in trying something on Polkadot without using up your DOT? You can play around with the Westend testnet. Faucet is available via Matrix chat, channel #westend_faucet:matrix.org

To see your account information, go to https://polkadot.js.org/apps/#/accounts, and click the downwards-facing arrow next to your DOT balance. You will see how much of your account is transferrable, vested, locked, reserved, bonded, and democracy-locked.

Having trouble understanding proxies? Kirsten Richard has done a three-video series on them. Part 1: "What are proxies?" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuaM5dWAJis&list=PLOyWqupZ-WGuAuS00rK-pebTMAOxW41W8&index=29

Part 2: "Anonymous Proxies" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWq53zXo7dw&list=PLOyWqupZ-WGuAuS00rK-pebTMAOxW41W8&index=28

Part 3: "Governance Proxies" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5qLFhG4SDw&list=PLOyWqupZ-WGuAuS00rK-pebTMAOxW41W8&index=27

Accidentally had your settings set to the wrong network when you copied your address? You can now easily convert addresses between Polkadot, Kusama, Kulupu and several other formats with our Address Changer tool. https://wiki.polkadot.network/docs/en/learn-accounts#address-changer

Don't want to depend on how the UI displays information to you? You can make your own RPC calls through the UI here: https://polkadot.js.org/apps/#/rpc

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