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Kusama 2026 Topup 1 - Revised
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SPC_Topup-022126-Kusama-Revised.md

Proposal to Fund System Parachain Collators (Kusama)

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction

Kusama’s system parachains provide shared infrastructure that other applications and users implicitly rely on. To keep these chains healthy, the network depends on collators that are sufficiently decentralized, consistently available, and properly resourced—because poor collation performance directly translates into slower block times and degraded UX.

This proposal updates the budget and scope of the existing System Parachain Collator bounty top-up to reflect current treasury constraints. It includes:

  • payment for work already rendered (at reduced rates for Jan/Feb), and
  • a revised, lower-cost funded set from March onward based on a tiered approach (invulnerables only), extended through December.

2.0 Previous Referenda

Initiatives supporting Kusama system chain collators have been ongoing since early 2023 and have been essential to maintaining the network’s stability, security, and decentralization.

3.0 Budget

Conversion rate used: $4.49 per 1 KSM
Note: This budget is structured in three parts:

  1. Kusama December remainder at regular rates (partially paid already)
  2. January + February payments for work already rendered (reduced rates)
  3. March through December under the revised, tiered collator set and updated cost model

Important policy updates:

  • No payments to permissionless collators
  • No staking rewards
  • Curator compensation is now $250 per curator fixed
    (3 curators = $750/month)
  • Coordinator compensation for periods B and C is covered under the Polkadot proposal
  • Hosting is fixed at $425/month
  • No tool-development budget is included

3.1 Payment Periods and Summary

A) December (Outstanding remainder at regular rates — Kusama only)

The table below reflects the remaining unpaid December amount (December was partially paid already).
This breakdown is referenced from the attached summary screenshot used during reconciliation.

Item USD KSM (@ $4.49/KSM)
Collators 3,779.96 841.86
Curators 1,326.18 295.36
System Coordinator 1,020.00 227.17
Hosting fees 290.00 64.59
Total (Dec outstanding) 6,416.14 1,428.98

Reference: December reconciliation summary (attached image in discussion thread).

B) January + February (work already rendered — reduced rates)

  • Collators: 62 × $200/month
  • Curators: 3 × $250 = $750/month
  • Hosting: $425/month
  • No staking rewards
  • No coordinator fee (covered under the Polkadot proposal)
  • No tool dev

Monthly total (Jan; same for Feb):

Item Basis USD / month KSM / month
Collators 62 × $200 12,400.00 2,761.69
Curators 3 × $250 750.00 167.04
Hosting fixed 425.00 94.65
Total / month 13,575.00 3,023.39

Jan + Feb total: $27,150.00 | 6,046.77 KSM

C) March through December (10 months total — revised tiered set)

From March onward:

  • Collators: 30 funded collators × $250/month (invulnerables only; see Section 4.0)
  • Curators: $750/month
  • Hosting: $425/month
  • No coordinator fee (covered under the Polkadot proposal)
  • No tool dev
  • No staking rewards

Recurring monthly total (March onward):

Item Basis USD / month KSM / month
Collators 30 × $250 7,500.00 1,670.38
Curators 3 × $250 750.00 167.04
Hosting fixed 425.00 94.65
Total recurring / month 8,675.00 1,932.07

Totals (March through December):

Period USD KSM
Recurring (10 months) 86,750.00 19,320.71
Tool development 0.00 0.00
Total (10 months) 86,750.00 19,320.71

3.2 Collator Incentives

January + February (legacy set; reduced rates)

This portion covers work already rendered for the current set, at $200/month per eligible collator, paid proportional to blocks authored.

March onward (new tiered set; invulnerables only)

From March onward, funding is limited to invulnerable community collators based on a tiered categorization (Section 4.0), resulting in 30 funded collators total for Kusama system chains. The fee of $250/month comprises compensation for a host machine, operator time, monitoring and alerting, and the provision of a backup server.

3.3 Local Virtual Machines

We host local archive RPC instances in virtual machines on the same network as the curator’s scraping VM to ensure fast, reliable access to historical chain data. This is especially important for the relay-chain archive node, which has significantly larger storage requirements than individual parachain nodes.

The monthly VM costs cover not only compute and storage, but also ongoing maintenance activities including software upgrades, maintaining backups, and ensuring the nodes remain available and fully synced.

Archive access is also required for governance and auditability: curators may need to query historical state to validate or respond to claims based on past data. Under this proposal, retrospective queries are limited to 3 months back.

Monthly cost (Kusama portion):

  • Parachain archive VMs: 5 × $50 = $250.00/month
  • Relay-chain archive VM: 1 × $150 = $150.00/month
  • Curator VM (50% share): $50 × 0.5 = $25.00/month

Total monthly infrastructure cost = $425.00

3.4 Administrative (Curators & Coordinator)

The Curators are responsible for producing the monthly payout report, reviewing results for discrepancies, communicating updates to the collation team, and handling incoming queries and follow-ups as they arise.

Curators are compensated at a fixed rate of:

  • $250 per curator per month
  • 3 curators = $750/month

System Parachain Collators are additionally supported by a coordinator who acts as the technical liaison between collators and curators. When discrepancies occur, the coordinator helps identify likely technical causes and flags any relevant chain events that could explain the outcome. The coordinator also supports operational coordination—such as onboarding new chains, managing required upgrades, organizing actions that must be performed in unison, and gathering logs or diagnostics for developers.

For this proposal, coordinator compensation for January through December is covered under the Polkadot proposal and is therefore not included in budget items B and C above.

4.0 Collator Set Categorization (from March onward)

With assistance from Parity and based on chain criticality and risk profile, the system chains are categorized into tiers with minimum recommended collator counts. This provides a defensible, reusable model for future system chains while tightening costs under current treasury conditions.

Key outcome from March onward:

  • We fund invulnerable community collators only (no permissionless funding).
  • The funded set remains 30 collators total on Kusama.

Tier model (minimums)

  • Tier-1 chains (AssetHub, People, BridgeHub): 8 community invulnerables funded (dev invulnerables remain, but are not funded here)
  • Tier-2 chains (Coretime): 4 community invulnerables funded
  • Tier-3 chains (all other system chains e.g., Encointer): 2 community invulnerables funded

Reference: tier summary screenshot (attached in discussion thread).

March-funded collators (Kusama)

Chain Tier Funded community invulnerables
AssetHub Tier-1 8
BridgeHub Tier-1 8
People Tier-1 8
Coretime Tier-2 4
Encointer Tier-3 2
Total 30

Budget totals (entire ask)

Period USD KSM (@ $4.49/KSM)
Dec outstanding (one-time) 6,416.14 1,428.98
Jan + Feb (2 months) 27,150.00 6,046.77
March through December (10 months) 86,750.00 19,320.71
Grand Total 120,316.14 26,796.47

5.0 References

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