Gavin Wood, the founder of the Polkadot protocol, has revealed a new Gray Paper outlining the upcoming Join-Accumulate Machine (JAM) upgrade for the network. This announcement came during Wood’s presentation on the future of Polkadot at the Token2049 crypto conference in Dubai.
Wood presented the JAM Implementer Award, a total prize pool of 10 million DOT, to encourage diverse development of the JAM protocol.
Polkadot reveals JAM update
According to announcementThe JAM upgrade aims to replace the relay chain, which serves as the central data chain on the Polkadot network, with a “more modular and minimalist design” that will allow Polkadot to run generic services and increase network stability.
The parachain service within JAM will support existing Substrate-based parachains, allowing developers to continue using Substrate to develop and deploy their blockchains.
Notably, these services will have no predefined code, data, or state capacity limits and can accommodate DOT Deposits to increase capacity.
The JAM design includes several technical improvements. It replaces WebAssembly with the Polkadot Virtual Machine based on the RISC-V ISA, an open-source instruction set architecture (ISA) used to develop custom processors.
It also features SAFROLE, a SNARK-based block production algorithm. These updates are designed to optimize performance and scalability on the Polkadot network.
On the road to decentralization?
To realize the vision of “a truly decentralized protocol”, Polkadot aims to support multiple customers implementations. Additionally, the JAM Implementer award was created to encourage and fund projects that contribute to the development of JAM implementations. The ad also says on the subject:
We believe that supporting a range of implementations in multiple programming languages will strengthen the foundation of the ecosystem. It distributes the power of protocol implementers more broadly and reduces the risk of a bug in one implementation bringing down the entire network.
The JAM Implementer Award will collaborate with existing and future funding initiatives that support Polkadot’s ecosystem and technology stack. These initiatives include Decentralized Futures, Subsidies, and the Polkadot on-chain treasury.
The reward will be activated when JAM is ratified as a Polkadot technology via the on-chain network governance mechanism.
Overall, the introduction of the JAM upgrade by Gavin Wood and the associated prize pool of 10 million DOT reflect Polkadot’s intention to increase usage and adoption of the protocol. JAM’s modular design and incentives for multi-client deployments are also expected to contribute to ongoing efforts to decentralize the Polkadot network.
As JAM development continues, the Polkadot ecosystem welcomes proposals from teams interested in implementing it in various programming environments.
Despite the recent announcement, the network’s native token, DOT, has failed to break the downtrend witnessed in the last month. Currently trading at $6.75, it reflects a significant 24% decline in price over the last 30 days.
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