Kusama bounty cleanup starts with two referenda to return about 8,973 KSM to the treasury

Victoria Shinder15 October 2026, 06:571 min read

A post on the Polkadot Forum on 14 October 2026 opened a cleanup of Kusama's bounty system with two on-chain referenda. Its author says some bounty proposals have sat untouched for months, while several active bounties show no recent activity and still hold unspent funds.

Referendum one: reject stale proposals. Proposed bounties #34, #35, #36, #37 and #39 have been waiting 13 to 18 months without progress, and some have since been overtaken by other funding decisions. Turning them down empties that backlog. No money was ever set aside for these requests; what changes hands is only the proposers' bonds, forfeited to the Treasury in the usual way for a rejected proposal.

Referendum two: close idle bounties. Bounties #19, #27, #33 and #38 together still hold about 8,972.70 KSM. According to the post, #27 never had a child bounty opened, while the other three have no open child bounties and no recent activity; #33's last pending payment went out to its beneficiary rather than being reclaimed. Closing them returns the balances to the Treasury for reallocation, and the curators get their deposits back.

Checkable on chain. Each referendum ships with the exact call, its hash and a dry run against live Kusama. The author also points to Bounty Health, a self-built dashboard that reads every bounty from the chain and flags those that are stuck, at risk or awaiting cleanup.

Not finished. The post calls this a first step: funds that arrived but have not been accounted for and some multi-asset bounties still need attention, and the author plans to contact the relevant proposers and curators before any further action.

Source: Polkadot Forum, "Kusama Bounty Cleanup - First Steps" — https://forum.polkadot.network/t/kusama-bounty-cleanup-first-steps/19009