Blockchain project Polkadot is under fire after revealing $37 million in expenses on the marketing budget, triggering criticism and scrutiny from its community.

Polkadot, a sharded multi-chain network founded by the Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood, is facing backlash after disclosing $37 million in marketing expenses, leading to criticism and scrutiny from its community.

In its H1 2024 treasury report, Polkadot said that nearly $40 million was spent on “outreach,” saying that under outreach, the company describes “every spend that is intended to attract new users, developers, and businesses into the ecosystem.”

“This spans from advertising and media, online and offline community building and events, to big conferences and business development.”

Polkadot

Of the total marketing budget, over $20 million was allocated to advertising, while $10 million worth of DOT tokens were used for sponsorships. These sponsorships included sports deals, collaborations with a race car driver, and a partnership with an e-sports tournament organizer. For comparison, the report noted that Polkadot spent $23 million on developments in the first half of the year.

The marketing expenses quickly triggered outrage within the blockchain community, with accusations of centralization and frivolous financial campaigns. Victor Ji, co-founder of Manta Network, expressed his dissatisfaction in an X thread, calling Polkadot a “highly toxic ecosystem that lacks any real value for web3” and accusing it of discrimination and lack of support for network-built projects.

Another core developer at Polkadot, using the alias @seunlanlege, also criticized the project’s approach, saying it’s “insane to me how much money the Polkadot treasury is wasting on misplaced marketing,” and drawing parallels between Polkadot and the bankrupt FTX crypto exchange.

The report noted that at the current spending rate, Polkadot’s treasury has about “two years of runway left,” while acknowledging the unpredictable nature of crypto-denominated treasuries. As of now, Gavin Wood has not made any public statements on the matter.

The prevailing bearish sentiment in the cryptocurrency market extended throughout June. Last week, Bitcoin (BTC) fell below the $59,000 threshold for the first time in eight weeks. 

Widespread losses ensued across the market.

Some assets bucked the trend, recording new all-time highs. Selective bullishness wasn’t enough to prevent the overall crypto market cap from decreasing by 4.6% to $2.24 trillion.

Based on their strong performances last week, here are our top cryptocurrencies to watch this week:

MOG hits new ATH

MOG Coin (MOG) witnessed a bullish week. Dubbed the first culture coin on the internet, the meme coin started the week with the same bearish trend as the broader market, collapsing by 11.07% on June 23.

MOG spiked 45.32% on June 24 and June 25 thanks to increased social volume. Whale Insider confirmed that the rally solidified the token’s spot as the largest cat-themed meme coin by market cap.

MOG hit a new all-time high of $0.00002123 on June 29 amid increased interest.

The asset closed the week at $0.0000018355, posting a 67% increase. Its Commodity Channel Index (CCI) currently sits at 130.83, suggesting that the asset is overbought, and a pullback might be imminent.

Kaspa slips into price discovery after new ATH

Kaspa (KAS) also witnessed an uptrend last week. With a 25% weekly rise, KAS recorded a less bullish performance than MOG.

However, the PoW community-based asset slipped into a price discovery phase after breaching its previous all-time high of $0.1939 on June 30. This rally was partly due to reports of Marathon Digital mining $16 million in KAS.

While MOG dropped following its new ATH, Kaspa continued to reach new record prices, entering the new week with this bullish push amid an 8.96% increase over the past 24 hours.

Consequently, KAS has flipped PEPE to become the 23rd largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of $4.725 billion.

However, caution is advised as the new week begins. Notably, Kaspa’s daily relative strength index (RSI) has entered overbought territories, currently stationed at 71.76.

This suggests a looming retracement as the buying pressure reduces. The last time KAS became oversold, its price dropped 31% over two weeks.

FET drops 27% in three days

Fetch.ai (FET) is also among our top cryptocurrencies to watch this week. The Ethereum token looked to record a similar bullish momentum, but bearish pressure erased most of its gains toward the end of the week.

From June 23 to 26, FET spiked 26% from $1.472 to a near 3-week high of $1.860 as AI-focused tokens saw a massive uptrend.

However, this peak coincided with the upper Bollinger Band, a region that presented robust resistance from the bears.

Fetch.ai, a decentralized machine learning platform for applications such as asset trading and gig economy, saw its corresponding coin collapse from this high. Buying pressure was not sufficient to breach this resistance, resulting in massive declines over the following three days.

FET dropped by 27% from June 27 to June 29. It ultimately closed the week with an 8.56% loss. Despite a rebound effort, the asset remains below the 20-day SMA. While this might indicate a bearish trend, FET’s MACD line remains above the signal line, suggesting bullish momentum. The market remains indecisive at the moment.