Pop’s 2025 Roadmap: Year of Interoperability

7 min read4 days ago

Overview

Polkadot’s true potential has not been fully unleashed yet. This potential lies in the vision of building Web3 solutions that aren’t just on Polkadot, or only use a single rollup (parachain), but trustless applications built around the cutting-edge infrastructure of the entire ecosystem. However, the ability for somebody to easily combine the technology of Polkadot has not been fully realized. Through collaboration and building on the shoulders of giants, Polkadot will begin to Pop with applications that seamlessly compose the power of an ecosystem.

We have made important strides with Pop, pushing to become the easiest, fastest, and most powerful place to build Web3 solutions. With Pop CLI, we augmented the powerful and already existing tools of the ecosystem. Pop CLI aimed to supercharge existing technologies, making it a go-to tool for many developers.

Although tooling plays an important role in helping developers build, applications should be able to use, and feel, the true potential of Polkadot. Which is where Pop is heading in 2025. Pop Network is actively being built out to unleash the composable vision of Polkadot. Pop doesn’t compete with existing rollups, instead it connects them to benefit many at once. We believe in single applications (smart contracts) that utilize services across Polkadot’s expanding Web3 landscape. At its core, Polkadot’s strength comes from collaboration.

Realising the Vision: Helping Unleash the Potential of Polkadot

In 2025, our mission remains clear: to unlock the power of Polkadot’s ecosystem, backed by a thrilling DevEx, and a new era of UX. Powered by innovative tools, and top-tier support for Polkadot’s native smart contracts, primarily ink!, that will power a connected Polkadot. Together with our community, we’re building a future where developers can thrive, and multi-chain functionality is seamlessly integrated for dApp development.

We believe solving this requires a trustless, protocol-level approach, driven by community collaboration. Which is what Pop Network delivers: a Polkadot experience, enabling dApps to seamlessly interface with the ecosystem using a powerful messaging framework built using community technology at its foundations. This is the vision of Polkadot interoperability — effortless, unified, and developer-friendly. But is this possible?

At Sub0 Bangkok in November 2024, we showcased a breakthrough proof-of-concept of our messaging framework. We enabled a smart contract on Pop Network to execute transactions, control accounts, and trustlessly query data from other rollups, with responses automatically routed back the contract. This was done by combining some of the ecosystem’s most powerful technologies: PolkaVM, Polytope’s ISMP, Pop API, and XCM.

In 2025, we will be taking this messaging framework into production. Allowing the interoperability of supported rollups and any connected network beyond. Although the infrastructure will be versatile, we intend to start with a focus on collaborations with existing DeFi offerings across the ecosystem. This will help unlock new multichain financial applications — cutting-edge DeFi solutions unified by smart contracts. Collaborative, powerful, and delivering a Web3 experience only possible with Polkadot.

Creating unified access points to use the ecosystem helps demonstrate a superior user experience in Polkadot. But good developer experience still remains a core mission of Pop. As we build this infrastructure, we will continue to enhance our tooling, expand our developer support to the community, and launch a set of starter kits designed, collaboratively, for multichain applications.

The Journey So Far

Since unveiling our vision for Pop, we’ve made notable progress in bringing it to life. From launching our initial version of Pop on Paseo testnet, to securing treasury funding and presenting our continued progress at Sub0 Asia (March and November) and Polkadot Decoded, our journey has been marked by consistent and meaningful advancements. We’ve also laid a strong foundation for developer-friendly APIs and runtime-level building blocks to support ongoing smart contract innovation.

As in any ambitious undertaking, progress comes with challenges. A key turning point has been our decision to adopt PolkaVM (PVM) to support developers in the next stage of Polkadot’s evolution. This shift has required us to redirect efforts to ensure a seamless integration, taking a direct-role in helping transition Polkadot’s native smart contract language — ink! — to be compatible with PVM along with related tooling efforts. This shift has caused us to replace the “Programmable DAO” from the original proposal with PVM support.

The challenges we’ve encountered have only strengthened our resolve. The introduction of PVM has refined our focus, ensuring that Pop is not only functional but on the bleeding edge. Read the full story here.

Path to Mainnet and Beyond

On launch, Pop Network will be one of the first smart contract platforms to support PVM on Polkadot. This, combined with Pop Network’s messaging framework will unlock new types of innovations for developers. Our hybrid approach, utilizing XCM and ISMP, enables seamless interoperability across the Polkadot ecosystem and beyond via Hyperbridge and Snowbridge. Depending on developer demand, we intend to support more messaging transports in the future, such as GMP.

Additionally, we are committed to refining Pop’s APIs and messaging to deliver a robust and secure foundation for the next generation of DOT powered dApps.

DevEx and Better Tooling for Developers

Empowering developers has always been at the heart of Pop. Pop CLI, launched in 2024, has become an essential tool for developers, boasting:

Rapid project scaffolding and seamless local network setup — for rollups and smart contracts.

Comprehensive support for ink! smart contracts, from templates to integration, testing and deployment.
Support for rollup templates, easy network testing, and even production deployment.
Advanced features like wallet integration, guided pallet creation, and messaging setup & helpers.
Pop CLI will evolve to include PVM-based ink! contract support, expanding its capabilities and solidifying its role as the go-to tool for Polkadot development.

ink!: The Original Language of Polkadot

We aim to make ink! more than a smart contract language; it will provide a gateway to the future of decentralized applications. Built in Rust and leveraging the power of PVM, ink! enables secure, scalable, and composable smart contracts uniquely suited to Polkadot’s ecosystem.

Starter Kits: Something new that we intend to offer making getting started easier.

Prebuilt contract examples, paired with frontends
Augmented with Pop CLI

As a founding member of the ink! Alliance and curators of ink!ubator 2.0, we are deeply committed to fostering the growth of Polkadot’s Rust smart contract language. From workshops to technical enhancements, we are helping ensure ink! is the primary choice for developers seeking to build resilient, permissionless, fully interoperable smart contract based dApps in the Polkadot ecosystem. The ink! Alliance has diligently been building ink! V6 to support PVM, Solidity compatibility, and more.

JAM

JAM will enable an even more seamless type of interoperability. We are eagerly anticipating JAM allowing Pop to expand its capabilities for even better applications, with further improved starter kits and a continued developer experience that thrills. Initially, we are aiming to collaborate with as many Polkadot rollups as possible to spark a renewed phase of ideation, innovation, and most importantly, establishing real interoperability use-cases that are uniquely possible with Polkadot.

2025 the Year of Interoperability

This year’s roadmap for Pop intends to enable a new era of collaboration and interoperability by allowing developers to compose the cutting edge technology of Polkadot and its rollups. Imagine a single smart contract, one seamless access point, that leverages the power of several rollups at once. This effort will take extensive collaboration, but in the end we hope to be a helping force in bringing a new era of developer experience and user experience to Polkadot.

The future is interoperable, where Polkadot’s rollups work in harmony, reduce fragmentation, and power a new generation of multi-rollup applications.

Our roadmap is a reflection of our belief in Polkadot’s evolving vision, potential and the innovative spirit of collaboration of its developer community.

Go R0GUE With Us and Join Us on This Journey

We couldn’t have come this far without the immense community support, and we’re excited for what lies ahead. Whether you’re a developer, contributor, or supporter, there’s a place for you within Pop and the Polkadot ecosystem.