Dear community,

On behalf of the system parachain collators, I am resubmitting this funding proposal with a materially revised scope and budget. Since the last version, we have made several changes following earlier steering from W3F and, more recently, feedback discussed with Parity. The updated proposal shifts away from the earlier broad 6-month model and toward a more constrained structure focused on work already rendered, lower recurring costs, and a tighter funded collator set.

• Old proposal: System Parachain Collator Bounty - Topup Request January 2026
• New proposal: Kusama 2026 Topup 1 - Revised

The main revisions are as follows:

• The budget structure has been redesigned.
  The previous proposal was a flat 6-month request. The revised proposal is now split into three parts:
  A) the outstanding December remainder,
  B) reduced-rate payments for January + February for work already rendered, and
  C) a revised funding model running from March through December.

• The exchange rate assumption has changed.
  The older version used $7.3985 per 1 KSM, while the revised proposal uses $4.49 per 1 KSM.

• Staking rewards have been removed entirely.
  The old proposal included a staking-reward component for 62 collators, estimated at roughly 39.24 KSM/month. The revised proposal explicitly states no staking rewards.

• The tool-development budget has been removed.
  The previous version included a one-time $4,250 Kusama allocation for completing the updated scraping/payout tool. The revised proposal explicitly removes that budget line.

• Funding is no longer proposed for permissionless collators.
  In the older version, the funded set included both invulnerable and permissionless collators, for a total of 62 eligible collators. In the revised version, funding is limited to invulnerable community collators only.

• The funded collator set has been reduced.
  The old proposal funded 62 collators at $300/month. The revised model funds 30 collators total from March onward at $250/month, based on a tiered categorization of system chains.

• A tiered model has replaced the previous broad funding model.
  From March onward, the revised proposal uses the following funded set:

  • AssetHub: 8
  • BridgeHub: 8
  • People: 8
  • Coretime: 4
  • Encointer: 2
    This results in 30 funded community invulnerables in total.

• Administrative compensation has been simplified and reduced within the Kusama ask.
  Previously, curators were compensated via a 7.5% fee on the monthly subtotal. The revised proposal replaces this with fixed curator compensation of $250 per curator per month ($750/month total).
  In addition, coordinator costs are no longer included in Kusama budget items B and C, as those are covered under the Polkadot proposal.

• Hosting remains included at a fixed monthly cost.
  The revised proposal keeps hosting fixed at $425/month.

• The recurring collator compensation has been reduced from the earlier draft.
  In the previous version, the March-onward funding model assumed $300 per funded collator per month. The revised proposal lowers this to $250 per funded collator per month, further reducing the recurring cost of the proposal.

• The total scope and headline ask have changed significantly.
  The previous draft described a 6-month total of about 17,456.59 KSM. The revised proposal now totals $120,316.14, or 26,796.47 KSM, across parts A + B + C.

• The updated period totals are now as follows:

  • A) December outstanding: $6,416.14 | 1,428.98 KSM
  • B) January + February: $27,150.00 | 6,046.77 KSM
  • C) March through December: $86,750.00 | 19,320.71 KSM

Overall, the revised proposal is intended to reflect current treasury constraints while preserving support for the most critical system-chain collator infrastructure.

Regards,
Will | Paradox | ParaNodes.io