The Web3 Foundation has initiated a prize pool of 10 million DOT tokens, valued at around $65 million, to support the implementation of the anticipated Join-Accumulate Machine (JAM) upgrade within the Polkadot ecosystem.

On May 27, Gavin Wood, the founder of Polkadot, announced that the community had overwhelmingly approved the proposed upgrade through a governance vote.

Named the JAM Implementers’ Prize, this initiative aims to stimulate innovation and enrich the Polkadot ecosystem by encouraging diverse implementations of the JAM protocol. These efforts are intended to bolster network resilience and scalability.

The prize invites developers to create JAM implementations in various programming languages such as OCaml, Go, and Zig. Participants must achieve specific milestones including block importation, block production, meeting performance benchmarks on Kusama and Polkadot networks, and passing security audits.

The initiative is structured to facilitate the evolution of a decentralized network capable of managing diverse computational tasks efficiently.

According to the Web3 Foundation:

“JAM represents an evolutionary, minimalist blockchain protocol designed to enhance data management and interoperability within the Polkadot network. It aims to maintain Polkadot’s leadership in security, flexibility, and scalability of blockspace.”

Additionally, the upgrade introduces groundbreaking scalability enhancements to the consensus layer, previously achievable only through rollups. This innovation eliminates the need for developers to choose between appchains and smart contracts.

The foundation emphasized that JAM provides a versatile environment for achieving Layer 2 (L2) scalability without relying on roll-up solutions, thereby catering to the diverse requirements of any application. The strong community support for JAM underscores a readiness to embrace decentralized innovation while upholding rigorous standards.

While the timeline for the upgrade remains unspecified, the implementation process will progress through five stages, including importation, authoring, speed evaluations, and security audits.