On Behalf of the Paseo curators, this proposal requests $210,800 USDC to fund the operational costs of the Paseo testnet for H2 2026 (Q3 + Q4). Following the transition to stablecoin-denominated funding established in the H1 2026 proposal, this top-up continues under the same model, funded and held directly in USDC via the multi-asset bounty pallet.

This proposal also introduces a significant restructuring of Paseo's resources and operating procedures, targeting approximately a 40% reduction in quarterly costs from ~$196k/quarter to ~$100k/quarter. The changes reflect lower demand for dedicated parachain cores, the ecosystem's shift toward product testing infrastructure, and the need to operate more efficiently given current treasury conditions.

The DOT balance previously held by the bounty was returned to the Polkadot treasury upon the H1 transition and can be verified on-chain here.

For full proposal details, including restructuring scope, quarterly budget breakdown, SLOs, and curator information, see the full proposal.

We are posting this for community discussion ahead of the on-chain submission next week. Feedback welcome.