Polkadot's OpenGov system has closed Referendum 1626, a "Wish for Change" proposal to rename the DOT token to JAM by the end of 2026, with 52.83 million DOT, or 94.9%, voting against and 2.83 million DOT, or 5.1%, voting in favor.
The proposal, submitted by on-chain contributor Colorful Notion, argued that the DOT name was too closely tied to parachain security to represent JAM's broader vision of trustless supercomputing.
Turnout reached 0.05% of roughly 1.59 billion DOT in total issuance, within the normal range for lighter governance proposals on the network. The proposal carried no immediate tokenomics changes and framed itself as a starting point for community consensus rather than a mandate. Voters rejected it decisively.
Wood proposes DOT and JAMKB model
In a post published June 28 on the Polkadot Medium, Gavin Wood offered a different framework than either a rebrand or the status quo.
Wood proposed a two-token model: DOT would remain the governance token controlling the Polkadot network, while a new $JAMKB token would function as "a resource access token" mapped to finite chain state capacity under JAM's architecture.
Wood wrote that "neither DOT nor $JAMKB are primarily intended as cryptocurrencies," separating the tokens by economic function rather than collapsing them under one name.
DOT stays intact for JAM transition
The outcome means Polkadot enters the JAM mainnet transition, currently targeting a governance vote in the second half of 2026, with DOT intact as the network's primary ticker.
Exchanges, wallets, and custody providers will carry DOT into the JAM era unless a subsequent referendum changes the community's position.