According to ChainCatcher news, the official version of Polkadot 2.0 is expected to go live in the first quarter of 2025, as disclosed by blockchain infrastructure company Parity Technologies. A key feature of Polkadot 2.0, Elastic Scaling, is currently undergoing early testing on the Kusama network, supporting a single parachain to use multiple cores to enhance network performance.

ChainCatcher message, the Polkadot network aims to significantly shorten the unlocking period of DO T tokens through the RFC 97 proposal. This proposal has been approved by the Fellowship after review and discussion, and its code or design has been merged into the main codebase.The new mechanism will change the originally fixed 28-day unlocking period to a flexible 2-28 days, with the specific duration dynamically adjusted based on the size of the unlocking request queue. When the queue is relatively idle, unlocking can be completed in as fast as 2 days; however, when the unlocking requests (measured by the amount staked) exceed a certain threshold, the unlocking period will be extended to 28 days. The proposal suggests implementing and testing this model on the Kusama network first to assess its effectiveness and stability before considering integration into the Polkadot mainnet.

ChainCatcher news, according to the official blog, Tether has stated that starting from September 1, 2025, Tether will no longer be obligated to accept USDT or EURT exchanges on Omni, Kusama, SLP, EOS, and Algorand. Tether will freeze all remaining USDT or EURT on Omni, Kusama, SLP, EOS, and Algorand on September 1, 2025.Tether customers holding USDT or EURT on Omni, Kusama, SLP, EOS, and Algorand should redeem their assets as soon as possible, or if necessary, request the issuance of USDT or EURT on supported blockchains according to their terms of service. Non-customer holders can migrate their USDT or EURT holdings to supported blockchains through available service providers according to the terms of these providers.

ChainCatcher news, according to Polkaworld, the cross-chain bridge between Polkadot and Kusama is now live. The GRANDPA light client running on the respective BridgeHubs of Polkadot and Kusama has been initialized and is currently being synchronized in real-time by a permissionless relayer operated by Parity.The consensus proof logic (light client), parachain head proof logic, and message proof logic are all running on-chain within the BridgeHub runtime, exclusively controlled by Polkadot/Kusama governance.

ChainCatcher news, according to PolkaWorld, the voting for the referendum to launch Coretime on Kusama has begun, where Kusama referendum 372 will decide on the registration of the Coretime parachain. Once the Coretime parachain is registered, other parts of the Kusama network can upgrade to version v1.2.0, which will migrate all leases to the Coretime parachain. Additionally, a separate referendum will be initiated afterward to start the sale of Coretime through the Coretime parachain.The Kusama referendum 373 aims to upgrade the Kusama system to Fellowship v1.2.0, which will migrate all leases to Coretime, with an effective date set for April 18. All of this is based on the Coretime runtime in the Fellowship v1.2.0 version. Please note that once the runtime upgrade is implemented, auctions will immediately stop, existing leases will automatically migrate to bulk Coretime, and any auctions that have not started will be canceled, with locked KSM being refunded. After the approval of these two proposals, another referendum will be initiated to enable the purchase of Coretime.Parity developer joyce stated that if the voting is successful, Coretime is expected to go live on Kusama on April 18.

ChainCatcher news, Tether announced a strategic transformation, stopping support for USDT on Kusama, Bitcoin Cash SLP, and Omni Layer.It is reported that Tether will stop minting USDT-Omni, USDT-Kusama, and USDT-BCHSLP starting from August 17, and will continue to redeem USDT-Omni, USDT-Kusama, and USDT-BCH-SLP as usual for the next 12 months.

ChainCatcher news, the liquid staking protocol Lido tweeted that it has reached an agreement with its partner MixBytes on Polkadot to stop development and operational support for the Lido protocol on Polkadot and Kusama starting from August 1, 2023.MixBytes stated that Lido on Polkadot and Kusama faces several key challenges, failing to meet financial expectations, including data related to protocol adoption and growth not meeting expectations, macro market factors leading to a lack of liquidity in the Polkadot DeFi ecosystem, and Lido's resource tilt towards Ethereum.Starting from March 15, Lido on Polkadot and Kusama has stopped accepting new staking deposits. Existing $stDOT and $stKSM holders will continue to receive rewards until June 15. Redemptions will also stop on June 15. On June 22, assets will be automatically unstaked from the relay chain and transferred to the parachain on July 24, where users can only claim from the protocol UI. On August 1, the protocol will officially cease operations.In addition, MixBytes also stated that it is evaluating the possibility of technically supporting a native liquid staking solution focused on Polkadot and Kusama. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, according to The Crypto Times, luxury giant Louis Vuitton will collaborate with 93-year-old Japanese avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama to release 10,000 co-branded NFTs to commemorate the brand's 200th anniversary. The related NFTs will be listed on OpenSea, and holders will be able to exchange these NFTs for physical goods. Experts predict that based on the costs of NFTs from other luxury brands, the minting price for each Louis Vuitton and Yayoi Kusama co-branded NFT will be approximately 4 ETH. (Source link)

Chain Catcher news, Donnie, a team member of the NFT project Moonsama based on the Kusama parachain Moonriver, stated on social media that the team plans to collaborate with Aventus to launch an EVM-compatible Polkadot Layer 2 network within two weeks, intending to adopt an NFT-based governance mechanism. (Source link)