In February 2025, the Web3 Foundation introduced Referendum 498, a transformative proposal to allocate 10 million DOT from the W3F treasury to redefine Kusama’s role in the Web3 ecosystem. Originally conceived as Polkadot’s “chaotic canary” and testing ground for bleeding-edge features, Kusama has proven its resilience and capacity for innovation, most notably during the “Spammening” stress test, where it handled 143,000 transactions per second.
Now, as Polkadot matures, Kusama is evolving from a testbed into a peer network — an experiment-central hub where radical ideas in zero-knowledge proofs, proof-of-personhood, and digital art can flourish without constraint.
The referendum outlined the support for bleeding-edge development and community-driven funding over the next 24 months.
With the community’s approval, this vision is now becoming a reality. Today, we’re excited to announce that three major bounties are preparing to launch, each designed to push the boundaries of what’s possible on Kusama.
The Three Kusama Vision Bounties
These bounties embody Kusama’s spirit as a cypherpunks’ playground, a place where privacy technology, humanness, and art converge. Each bounty represents a distinct pillar of innovation, united by a commitment to radical experimentation and fearless building.
🔐 Proof of Personhood
As AI increasingly blurs the boundary between human and machine, ensuring human distinctiveness in digital spaces has become essential. This bounty supports the next generation of applications and protocols built on existing Proof of Personhood primitives — advancing tools and frameworks that preserve privacy, autonomy, and human authenticity online.
We invite builders to extend PoP systems through privacy-preserving mechanisms, interoperable social trust graphs, novel attestations, and other creative architectures that keep digital ecosystems human-led, resilient against sybil attacks, and resistant to AI impersonation.*
🔮 Zero-Knowledge Proofs
At the intersection of trust, privacy, and verification lies zero-knowledge technology. ZK proofs enable parties to prove statements without revealing underlying data. A fundamental breakthrough for privacy-preserving computation, scalable blockchains, and confidential transactions.
The Zero-Knowledge bounty invites architects and pioneers to push the bleeding edge. Among them could be the development of ZK rollups on Kusama, novel proof systems, privacy-preserving applications, and tools that protect humanity’s freedom in an increasingly surveilled world.* This is where the next generation of trustless, private infrastructure will be born.
🎨 Art & Social Experiments
Kusama is more than a blockchain. It’s a canvas for the audacious and a stage for the unprecedented. The Art & Social Experiments bounty recognizes that the most transformative innovations often emerge at the intersection of technology and culture.
This bounty supports artists, creators, and visionaries who embody the cypherpunk ethos through cultural artifacts, explorations of novel on-chain events, experimental DAOs, and social coordination mechanisms that reimagine what blockchains can enable. From generative art to governance experiments to entirely new forms of human organization, this bounty funds the ambitious visions that become tomorrow’s cultural infrastructure.*
How to Engage
These three bounties are launching today and the curators are ready to accept proposals from builders, researchers, artists and dreamers, who want to realize the Kusama Vision as the lab for experiments and innovation, to push the technological boundaries.
Here’s how you can reach out to the curators:
Proof of Personhood Bounty
Art & Social Experiments Bounty
Zero Knowledge Proofs Bounty
The future of Kusama is being written by those brave enough to experiment.
Important Disclaimers
- *These are examples and do not represent the current scope of funding.
- Web 3.0 Technologies Foundation (“the Foundation”) does not direct, manage, or control the operations of the Kusama Vision program (“Program”) or the use of any funds the Foundation may provide to the Program through Bounties. All decisions regarding the management and expenditure of Program funds remain decentralized and curator-led. Accordingly, the Foundation accepts no responsibility or liability for the use or misuse of any Program funds, or for the outcomes of the Program, or for any acts, omissions, or decisions made in connection with the Program. The Foundation will not be liable for any damages, losses, or claims arising out of or in connection with participation in the Program.
Kusama Vision Bounties: Activating the Second Age of Radical Experimentation was originally published in Web3 Foundation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
