The sharded multi-chain network Polkadot was created by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood. The blockchain community is now critiquing and scrutinizing it more closely after it was revealed that it spent $37 million on marketing. Polkadot’s H1 2024 treasury report goes into depth about the revelation, which has angered many people.
The study says that almost $40 million set aside for marketing was mostly used for “outreach” activities meant to attract new users, developers, and businesses.
Over $20 million of this amount was set aside for advertising efforts, and $10 million worth of DOT tokens were used for sponsorships. Some of these sponsorships were partnerships in sports, working with a race car driver, and participating in e-sports events. DOT, on the other hand, gave $23 million to development projects during the same time period, the study said.
Polkadot’s Controversial Marketing Spending
The large amount of money spent on marketing has angered people in the Bitcoin community. Victor Ji, co-founder of Manta Network, was unhappy with Polkadot and said it was a “highly toxic ecosystem” that offered nothing useful to Web3. He said the project was unfair because it was supposed to be biased and not give enough support to network-developed projects.
Also, @seunlanlege, a key developer in the Polkadot ecosystem, was very critical. He called the marketing costs “insane” and compared the bad financial management seen in crypto exchanges that went out of business.
Even with the reaction, the treasury report said DOT has enough money to last two years at her current spending rate. However, cryptocurrency-based bonds are also said to be likely to be volatile. Gavin Wood, the well-known person behind Polkadot, has not officially responded to the community’s concerns.
Polkadot’s marketing spending caused a lot of controversy, which shows that there are still arguments in the blockchain space about how to spend money wisely and how to mix promotion with core development.
