Polkadot 2025 Q2 Treasury Report: $27.6 million spent, $106 million remaining!

The Polkadot Treasury quarterly report may appear to be a cold financial statement, but in reality, it acts as a mirror reflecting a “long-term game” underway in the Polkadot ecosystem:

It is the answer to whether the ecosystem can self-sustain and achieve long-term sustainable development;

It is the touchstone for whether Web3 infrastructure can break free from speculative narratives and move toward a real economic narrative.

Several perspectives I find particularly noteworthy:

1. The Treasury is transitioning from “hoarding DOT” to “asset portfolio management”

74% of assets are still DOT, but the report shows that stablecoin procurement has been institutionalized (automated purchases, long-term swaps), which means Polkadot is actively weakening the “hostage effect” of DOT price volatility on the treasury. This is not a short-term financial operation, but an upgrade in governance philosophy—operating DAO finances in a more “institutionalized” manner.

2. The expenditure structure is quietly “transforming”

The largest expenditure in Q2 was not development or operations, but economic incentives—liquidity activities such as GIGAHydration and DeFi Singularity spent $910,000 in one go. The signal behind this is direct: Polkadot is using money to buy market share, and DeFi has officially become the top strategic spending priority for the treasury.

3. OpenGov is truly “decentralizing the treasury”

25% of treasury funds flow out through “Bounty & Collective” executive departments, indicating that Polkadot’s financial system is evolving from “one big wallet” to a “financial network of multiple specialized departments.” This is not just an optimization of division of labor, but also a decentralization of governance structure.

4. The essence of the Polkadot Treasury is still a “public goods foundation”

Two-thirds of funds are still invested in infrastructure, talent development, and ecosystem public resources (development, research, operations, education, bounties, etc.), with only about one-third used for market expansion and economic stimulation (such as liquidity incentives, BD, marketing).

This means the role of the Polkadot Treasury is not that of a “venture capital” chasing short-term returns, but a long-term source of funding supporting public interest and making the entire network safer and more sustainable.

5. Stablecoin inflow is the “coming of age” for DAO treasuries

Currently, Polkadot receives $2.8 million in stablecoins per month, and the DAO is moving toward a “quasi-central bank”—it can use stablecoins to plan budgets and allocate funds across cycles. In the future, the treasury may no longer be a vault relying on DOT inflation for rescue, but a “decentralized central bank” capable of designing fiscal policy.

In a nutshell:

This report not only tells us “how much money Polkadot has left and where it’s spent,” but also reveals the prototype of the first truly institutionalized DAO treasury in the Web3 world—a decentralized treasury machine that can operate, allocate funds, invest, and is exploring “how to make itself infinitely sustainable.”

Key Information Summary

1. Balance Sheet: The current total value of treasury assets is $106 million (31.1 million DOT).

Asset Structure:

• $76 million (22.2 million DOT) is freely disposable funds.
• Of this, $4 million is in stablecoins; another 5.7 million DOT ($19.4 million) is allocated for automated stablecoin purchases.
• $21.8 million (6.4 million DOT) is reserved for strategic plans (such as marketing, DeFi tools, gaming, BD, etc.).
• $8.5 million (2.5 million DOT) has been invested in DeFi market operations.

Liabilities: 790,000 DOT ($2.7 million) are payments due by the end of the year.

2. Expenditure

• Total expenditure: Q2 2025 expenditure is $27.6 million (6.8 million DOT). Operating loss: before inflation and burn, it is 6.7 million DOT, net loss is 2.7 million DOT.
• Top three expenditure categories: Economy ($9.1 million), Technical Development ($5.9 million), Outreach ($4.5 million)
• Departmental expenditure (Bounty & Collective): Departmental expenditure accounts for 25% of total expenditure ($7 million / 1.7 million DOT).

3. Stablecoin Usage: $9.7 million worth of stablecoins were purchased this quarter, with a total stablecoin expenditure of $10.8 million.

4. OpenGov is driving on-chain economic development. Currently, $8.5 million is injected as liquidity into 4 DeFi protocols.

5. Treasury Outlook: Assets are stable and the future is promising. With adjustments to the inflation model, the long-term financial outlook of the treasury is becoming increasingly robust.

About This Report

The Polkadot DAO manages tens of millions of dollars in assets, thus adopting industry-best accounting practices and introducing them to the Web3 field. This report includes a complete balance sheet and income statement:

• Balance Sheet: Shows all active treasury accounts and their asset distribution.
• Income Statement: Details the direction and classification of treasury expenditures.

Special thanks to the Web3 Foundation for funding this report (as part of the OpenGov.Watch program), the OpenSquare team for providing the dotreasury.com API, and the Parity data team for their support.

Report authors: Alice und Bob, Jeeper

Strategic Positioning of the Polkadot Treasury (Background for New Readers)

1. Polkadot’s core mission: Committed to the Web3 vision, helping users regain internet sovereignty, and building the “Polkadot Cloud”—a complete, efficient, and scalable Web3 service stack that enables developers to build Dapps and business applications at extremely low cost.

2. Self-sustaining and sustainable development: Polkadot does not rely on external organizations; all core infrastructure (such as bridges, wallets, data services, SDKs, governance and developer tools, nodes) is funded by OpenGov.

3. Growth strategy: Focused on enterprise adoption, with key areas including:

• DeFi, RWA, and fintech
• Gaming and entertainment
• AI and DePIN
• Social and identity
• GovTech: Promoted by decentralized BD teams, investors, incubators, and ecosystem support teams working together to drive project implementation.

4. Talent development system: Polkadot Blockchain Academy holds multiple offline courses annually, training hundreds of founders and developers; hackathons are held globally to promote the Polkadot tech stack.

5. Ecosystem communication capabilities lead the industry: Covering native media content production, advertising distribution, market research, decentralized ambassador programs, global event participation, all operated autonomously by the DAO to avoid “single point of failure” risk.

6. OpenGov departmental upgrade: Currently forming specialized departments around core functions (such as marketing, fintech integration, etc.), composed of professionals to improve proposal processing efficiency, reduce pressure on the main OpenGov proposal track, and allow voters to focus on more macro governance decisions.

Balance Sheet

As of the end of Q1 2025, the Polkadot DAO’s asset balance was 33.5 million DOT / $135 million.

After deducting liabilities, the balance is 32.6 million DOT / $131 million.

Assets

Asset Structure

We divide the asset structure as follows:

1. Cash and cash equivalents: 22 million DOT / $76 million

This portion includes DOT, USDT, and USDC that can be used immediately or quickly, stored on the Relay Chain and the system chain AssetHub:

Relay Chain: 11.1 million DOT ($38 million)

AssetHub:

• 4.1 million DOT ($14 million)
• 800,000 USDT (equivalent to about 235,000 DOT)
• 3.2 million USDC (equivalent to about 950,000 DOT)

In addition, on the Hydration DeFi chain, there are two trustless, fully automated stablecoin acquisition plans underway:

• Stablecoin Acquisition Plan #2: About 1.6 million DOT ($5.6 million) remaining, to be completed in 2025
• Stablecoin Acquisition Plan #3: Total of 4.1 million DOT ($13.9 million), to be completed by Q2 2026

2. Designated Assets: 6.4 million DOT / $22 million

These assets are managed by OpenGov but have been designated for specific uses, mainly to fund DAO executive departments (such as bounties and collectives). In addition, Polkadot holds MYTH tokens worth $344,000, which will be airdropped to DOT holders.

Bounty Pool: Polkadot has locked $13.1 million (3.9 million DOT) in the bounty pool to reward teams contributing to the ecosystem.

Technical Fellowship: The core maintainers of Polkadot Runtime, funded by the DAO, have two accounts:

• Salary account: 1.7 million USDT (about 503,000 DOT)
• Expenditure account: 1.9 million DOT (about $6.6 million)

MYTH Airdrop: As part of a strategic partnership with Mythical, Polkadot exchanged 1 million DOT for MYTH tokens. $2.6 million worth of MYTH has been airdropped to DOT holders and service providers, with about $345,000 worth remaining in the MYTH distribution account for future use.

3. Non-custodial Liquidity Provision: 1 million DOT / $3.5 million

The treasury deploys some idle funds in the Polkadot economy, with 1 million DOT currently deposited in the Hydration Omnipool as DOT liquidity.

4. Receivable Loans: 1.5 million DOT / $5 million

These are custodial liquidity provision activities:

• Provided 1.5 million USDT to Centrifuge’s RWA yield pool
• Bifrost uses 1 million DOT for its DOT liquid staking product
• Pendulum borrowed 50,000 DOT for its stablecoin bridge vault

Asset Portfolio

The Polkadot Treasury currently holds the following types of assets:

• DOT (native token)
• aDOT (DOT deposited in the Hydration money market, representing interest-bearing tokens)
• USDT / USDC (stablecoins)
• MYTH (tokens for future airdrops)

Among these, DOT is the largest holding, totaling about 23 million DOT ($79 million), accounting for 74% of the treasury’s total assets. Although the treasury is gradually converting DOT to stablecoins, some DOT is still deposited in DeFi money markets (such as Hydration) to enhance liquidity and earn yields.

aDOT (DOT deposited in money markets) accounts for about 5.7 million DOT ($19 million), about 18% of total assets.

USDC accounts for 4.6% ($4.9 million).

USDT accounts for 2.5% ($2.6 million).

MYTH (for future airdrops) accounts for about 0.33% ($345,000).

Cross-chain Asset Distribution

The Polkadot Treasury’s assets are currently distributed across 7 different chains.

Parachains have become an important component of treasury assets, with about 27% of assets deployed in DeFi-type parachains:

• Hydration: $23 million
• Bifrost: $3.4 million
• Centrifuge: $1.5 million
• Pendulum: $170,000

This is thanks to Polkadot’s governance system’s cross-chain capabilities, allowing governance decisions to be automatically executed on all chains protected by shared security, without trusted intermediaries.

The remaining 73% of treasury assets are distributed across 3 system chains (such as the Relay Chain and AssetHub), used for daily liquidity and operational expenses of various executive departments.

Liabilities

The Polkadot Treasury has introduced a “claims payable” mechanism to represent future committed expenditure obligations. These liabilities are shown as payables on the balance sheet.

• The current total payable liabilities are $2.4 million (720,000 DOT)
• Technical Fellowship salary liabilities are up to $250,000 (74,000 DOT) per 28-day cycle

As of now, the total amount of future expenditure commitments (claims) is $2.7 million, including:

• 430,000 DOT
• 980,000 USDT

These payment commitments will remain valid until December 2025.

Income Statement

In the income statement, we use DOT as the main accounting unit because the primary source of income for the Polkadot Treasury (i.e., inflation issuance) is denominated in DOT. For ease of understanding, we also provide a dollar-denominated comparison table for expenditures.

• In Q2 2025, the Polkadot Treasury’s total expenditure was 6.7 million DOT (about $28 million)
• After accounting for income, inflation income, and burn mechanism, the net loss for the quarter was 2.7 million DOT

Expenditure

In Q2 2025, Polkadot spent a total of $27.6 million (6.8 million DOT). The largest expenditure was “ecosystem economy,” reaching $9.1 million (2.2 million DOT). Next was software development expenditure at $5.9 million (1.4 million DOT). Outreach activities accounted for $4.5 million (1.1 million DOT). Talent and education expenditure was $3.8 million (1 million DOT), business development was $2.2 million (560,000 DOT). Operations expenditure was $1.6 million (400,000 DOT), and research expenditure was $360,000 (85,000 DOT).

Expenditure Category Explanation

The following are the categories and subcategories used in this report:

• Research: Security, governance, anti-fraud, data reporting and analysis, user experience and developer experience
• Development: Polkadot protocol and its SDK, cross-chain bridges, wallets, data services and indexers, governance tools, smart contracts, and other core technologies
• Operations: Software, hardware, and service costs related to network operations (such as RPC, archive nodes), auxiliary services (browsers, indexers), legal-related expenses
• Outreach: Marketing (media, PR, advertising), community building (conference hosting and participation, offline events, local outreach, ambassador programs)
• Business Development: Solutions, consulting services, architecture design, developer relations in verticals such as gaming, DeFi, GovTech, music, etc.
• Talent & Education: Education, hackathons, talent recruitment and incubation (such as Polkadot Blockchain Academy)
• Economy: Liquidity incentives to stimulate the on-chain economy

Detailed Expenditure Breakdown

We observe that expenditures increased in Q2, mainly due to new DeFi incentive measures to drive ecosystem economic growth. Business development and research expenditures remain below average, continuing the trend from Q1. Outreach spending is also relatively restrained. Operations remain stable, close to their historical average. As for talent and education, after two consecutive quarters of low investment, spending resumed this quarter.

Next, we will delve into the specifics of each expenditure category!

1. Ecosystem Economy (Economy) — $9.1 million

Includes:

• GIGAHydration event: $8.3 million
• DeFi Singularity event: $830,000

The goal is to incentivize liquidity growth on the Hydration chain and Ethereum ecosystem bridge chains.

2. Development Expenditure — $5.9 million

Focus on core infrastructure and tool development:

• Eiger storage system: Next phase development subsidy $1.9 million
• Smart contract support (OpenZeppelin): $1.8 million (supports Polkadot Hub and Cloud)
• Snowbridge cross-chain bridge support: $730,000
• Talisman wallet: $600,000 (half-year feature support and new development)

Other expenditures:

• Protocol and SDK: $470,000 (including Fellowship salaries $320,000, Rust bounty $83,000, Pioneer bounty $29,000)
• Privacy chain Incognitee (TEE solution): $200,000
• Mimir multisig support: $160,000

3. Outreach Expenditure — $4.5 million

In terms of marketing, event hosting, and community building, Polkadot’s outreach expenditure reached $4.5 million this quarter. Outreach is one of the largest and most complex expenditure categories, containing multiple subcategories and even sub-subcategories. The core areas are “marketing” and “event operations.” We will analyze each in detail below.

Advertising — $1.9 million

• Esports event Blast in partnership with Nova Wallet: $920,000
• Kaito KOL marketing: $490,000, Fracas: $34,000
• Omni media placement: $200,000
• Other advertising and marketing bounty personnel costs: $180,000

Events — $1.5 million

• Blockspace Mansion (multiple locations): $360,000
• Consensus Toronto: $180,000
• Blockspace Brooklyn: $130,000
• ETHLisbon, ETHPrague: total $128,000
• Other 20+ event participation expenses

Meetups & Small Events

• Sponsored 114 meetups, total expenditure $260,000
• Supported Polimex x Scytale Demo Day: $16,000

Content Creation & Media Distribution — $1.1 million

Content creation and distribution ($550,000):

• Polkaworld: $270,000
• The Kusamarian: $98,000
• Pala Labs (JAM itinerary coverage): $69,000
• WebZero (hackathon coverage): $49,000

Social media & content management ($230,000): Airlyft marketing campaign ($81,000), editorial committee ($40,000), community management salaries

PR: Serotonin (Asia-Pacific market agent) $183,000; including joint marketing expenses with Acurast ($27,000) and Hyperbridge ($10,000)

Ambassadors & Agents — $80,000

• Includes funding support for the Texas Blockchain Council

4. Talent & Education — $3.8 million

Talent and education expenditure was $3.8 million, mainly to expand Polkadot’s talent pool.

• Polkadot Blockchain Academy (PBA) received $3 million in funding for the seventh offline camp, JAM special courses, university cooperation pilots, online course PBA-X, and alumni projects.
• In hackathons ($550,000), EasyA ($395,000), Encode Club ($130,000), and Goa 2025 ($26,000) received funding.
• For developer tools and onboarding, OpenGuild received $290,000 to accelerate Polkadot builder activation programs in Southeast Asia and the broader Asian region.

5. Business Development — $2.2 million

Business development expenditure was $2.2 million, focusing on market penetration in multiple verticals and funding for specific technical and experimental projects.

• DeFi and fintech integration ($1.1 million) was the main expenditure: Merkle Science ($330,000) received funding to provide market indices for the upcoming Polkadot Hub; DIA ($110,000), Uphold ($80,000), Nima Labs ($78,000), Ripio ($69,000), and several other projects received funding.
• Business development teams ($520,000): PoKe ($290,000), Spanish BD team ($140,000), PolkaBiz ($83,000) received funding.
• Security ($208,000): Funded three audit projects, including frontier-srlabs ($96,000), dotpal-cg-microsr25519 ($40,000), coinfabrik-scout ($17,000).
• Gaming ($190,000): SAGE engine received $80,000, independent game EVRLOOT received $68,000.
• Protocol incentive projects: Robonomics received $150,000 for its RISC-V smart home device promotion campaign; DotMemo received $70,000 under the NFT category.

6. Operations Expenditure — $1.6 million

Operations expenditure was $1.6 million, used to maintain the software and hardware required for the network.

• RPC services received $880,000 in funding.
• Data service SQD received $310,000.
• Governance ($237,000): JUST received $235,000 for its contribution to OpenGov, Anaelle received a $2,000 reward.
• Testnet Paseo expenditure this quarter was $170,000.

7. Research — $360,000

Research expenditure was $360,000, supporting experimental, data-driven, and research-led projects.

• Polkadot Ecology Research Institute received $210,000.
• Expenditure for UX audits, research, and improvements was $63,000.
• Contingency reward for the “Spammening” event in December last year, Amforc received $45,000.
• Anti-fraud bounty expenditure $39,000.

8. Executive Departments: Bounty & Collectives

Executive departments (also known as Executive Bodies) are organizational forms that provide services for specific areas within the ecosystem, simplifying OpenGov operations by centralizing tasks in a given area, thus reducing the cognitive burden of collective voting. Since Q3 2024, these executive bodies have handled about 19% of total expenditure; in Q2 2025, the proportion was 25%. Please note, these costs have already been listed above; this is just another perspective.

Bounties — $6.6 million

The bounty mechanism is similar to functional departments in traditional organizations, with clear tasks and budget expenditure targets. This quarter, total bounty expenditure was $6.6 million, accounting for 24% of total expenditure:

• Marketing bounty: $2.6 million
• Event bounty: $1.5 million
• DeFi infrastructure and tools bounty: $770,000, focusing on financial service integration into Polkadot Hub
• Infrastructure Builders Program: $760,000, for key node facility operations
• Polkadot Assurance Legion: Provided $210,000 worth of security audits
• Paseo testnet expenditure: $170,000
• Gaming bounty: $110,000

Collectives

Technical Fellowship compensation is as follows:

• April 2025: $105,000
• May 2025: $107,000
• June 2025: $111,000

In addition, the Fellowship sub-treasury paid an additional $29,000 in subsidies for two positions in Q2 2025.

Analysis

Stablecoins

In this section, we review the historical flow of stablecoins and look ahead to future inflow trends.

Stablecoin Historical Flow

From the end of Q1 2024 to the end of Q2 2025, the Polkadot Treasury accumulated a total of 21 million USDC and 21 million USDT, averaging about $2.5 million in stablecoins per month.

Expenditure basically kept pace with inflow, with 18 million USDC and 20 million USDT distributed to proposers. In addition, $1.5 million in idle USDC was provided as a liquidity loan to Centrifuge.

The third round of the stablecoin procurement plan was launched in Q2 2025, expected to bring in $2.8 million in new stablecoin inflows per month.

Stablecoin Quarterly Expenditure Overview

The following chart shows the amount of DOT, USDC, and USDT used each quarter, the total expenditure in dollars for the entire quarter, and the proportion of stablecoins in that quarter’s expenditure.

Trends

From a long-term perspective:

• Assets and cash balances denominated in DOT are stabilizing.
• Since the treasury’s assets are still mainly in DOT, the overall value of the treasury remains closely tied to the price of DOT.

Balance Sheet Changes

This quarter, the balance sheet shows a decrease of 2 million DOT, indicating that overall expenditure remains stable. The dollar-denominated chart below clearly shows the impact of DOT price on the treasury’s valuation.

Treasury Cash Flow Changes

In terms of cash, its trend is similar to the overall asset change, indicating that the treasury’s spending behavior has remained consistent with the past few quarters.