Current Status and Future Prospects of JAM Protocol: 38 Teams, 15 Languages Co-creating New Web3 Infrastructure

Last month, another group of developers and students completed their study of Web3 in Lucerne, Switzerland. Gavin personally attended the graduation ceremony to send blessings and visions to the graduates. At the same time, several implementation teams of the JAM protocol also shared their experiences in JAM and their understanding of the protocol at the event.

Whether you are a developer looking to join JAM or an ordinary user optimistic about JAM's future development, this article is worth reading and learning.

Summary:

• Introduction of the JAM implementation team and motivation to join JAM
• Current status of JAM development: 38 teams, 15 languages, no boss, no orders
• The short and medium-term goals of JAM and the development team
• Polkadot migration path to JAM
• Feelings about JAM and future expectations
• The impact of JAM on the entire blockchain market
• Is the core application scenario of JAM a national-level infrastructure?

Introduction to the JAM Implementation Team

Tomek from Fluffy Labs decided to implement the JAM protocol using TypeScript, called Typeberry, 8 months ago. They are also committed to improving the development experience for other JAM teams and actively building related toolchains.

Daniel works at the jamixir team, using the Elixir language to implement JAM. He started developing after participating in the PBA course, while sharing content through social media, hoping to let more people know about JAM.

Maciej is part of the Graymatter team, building the JAM implementation with Elixir. Their team of four is all part-time, focusing on collaboration with other teams. Maciej believes that JAM is the future of Polkadot, and the abstraction capabilities it brings will unlock new possibilities.

Alistair is currently the Chief Scientist at the Web3 Foundation, primarily supporting the design of JAM from a theoretical perspective.

Kian works as a project manager in the Graymatter team and participates in JAM development on a part-time basis. He hopes to prepare for the future deployment in a production environment by contributing to early milestones.

Why join JAM development?

Tomek initially just found it interesting and wanted to participate part-time. He had previously participated in Polkadot development at Parity and believed that JAM was a great opportunity to return.

As a Polkadot developer, Maciej is often consulted on JAM-related issues. He believes that the best way to understand is to personally build and read the grey paper. He is confident that JAM can bring new features that were previously unattainable.

Alistair initially joined because someone consulted him about JAM. He finds the data availability design of JAM very attractive and looks forward to seeing its application scenarios. On a deeper level, JAM has established understandable protocol specifications through its gray paper, which is an important step towards a higher performance system.

Daniel's story begins with PBA. He believes in the Web3 vision proposed by Gavin and thinks that JAM is the best opportunity to achieve this goal.

Kian pointed out that their team members come from diverse backgrounds, including veterans from Polkadot and newcomers who graduated from PBA. This indicates that as long as one is willing to invest in learning and practice, anyone can become a part of driving JAM.

Current status of JAM development

Currently, 38 teams have publicly participated, covering about 15 programming languages. The JAM reward program incentivizes developers from different backgrounds to independently implement the protocol around the same white paper. In May this year, there are plans to launch the JAM testnet in Lisbon, while building a data center called JAM Toaster for large-scale network stress testing.

The short- and medium-term goals of JAM and the development team

Tomek hopes to have a stable running testnet within a year. Their team plans to shift to developing a lightweight client after completing Milestone 2. JAM is a minimalist protocol that does not natively include tokens and governance mechanisms; all functions must be extended in the form of services.

Daniel plans to stay in the JAM ecosystem for at least the next ten years. He enjoys the current working style of no company, no boss, and no clients.

Maciej hopes to see preliminary results of ELVES running on JAM within a year.

Alistair is concerned about what features the first version of JAM can include and which ones need to be postponed. He mentioned that in the future, JAM may need to establish its own fork management mechanism.

Polkadot migration path to JAM

Parachains still have a place in JAM, and there will be services to support their migration and operation. The basic idea is to first develop Core Chain Service to support the operation of parachains on JAM. Currently, the goal of Parity and Fellowship is to achieve a seamless migration as much as possible.

Feelings and future expectations for JAM

Tomek believes that JAM offers many new possibilities, and in the future, it may no longer be limited to the form of a "chain".

Daniel believes that if we want to achieve true Web3, Polkadot and JAM are the only options.

Alistair pointed out that the various abstractions and generalizations in JAM can open up new possibilities.

Maciej looks forward to new innovations based on JAM, such as Coreplay.

Q&A session

Someone asked if JAM could become a national-level infrastructure, and Daniel believes this is exactly the core application scenario of JAM, which can help the country achieve technological sovereignty.

To participate in the JAM project, it is recommended to first read the gray paper, and then contact the existing team or form your own team.

Experts believe that JAM can achieve functionalities that Polkadot cannot, mainly making certain functions easier and more efficient to implement, such as the Coreplay concept.

Regarding the impact of JAM on the blockchain market, experts believe that JAM is expected to become the industry standard, covering different segments and user groups.

The development of the JAM protocol is divided into 5 phases, and currently, about 20-25 teams are actively advancing it. It is expected that there may ultimately be 8 mature implementations of JAM.