Hey, I'm Bastian Köcher, a rank 6 Fellowship member. The Fellowship requires that members up to rank 6 apply for retention to stay at their rank; otherwise, they can be downgraded. Normally, these referendums are done within the Fellowship itself. To retain rank X, members of rank X+2 need to vote in favor of you. In my case, there are no members of rank 8+ who could vote for me. So, I need to use the Fellowship track to get approval from all the token holders.

At rank 6, I need to request retention every 6 months. This retention is for the time frame from March 2025 until September 2025.

My main focus is still on bringing `500ms` blocks (also known as `BastiBlocks`) to parachains. The feature development is mostly finished, and I’ve already started merging parts of it ([PR6137](https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/6137), [PR8172](https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/8172), [PR9002](https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/9002)) into the `master` branch of the Polkadot SDK. I’m splitting the feature into multiple smaller pull requests to make the review process easier. The MVP development is done, and now it’s mainly about getting the feature ported to `master`. It should land on test networks around the end of the year.

On May 23, we were informed about a potential security vulnerability in Polkadot. I did the initial investigation, developed a fix, and helped [publish a release](https://github.com/polkadot-fellows/runtimes/releases/tag/v1.5.1) that addressed the issue, all on the same day. It was a critical bug that allowed anyone to stall the relay chain or parachains by sending a simple transaction. For more details, [read the postmortem](https://forum.polkadot.network/t/2025-05-23-polkadot-sdk-transaction-depth-limit/13248).

Besides my development work, I also gave a presentation about CorePlay [at Protocol Berg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfihFE2M5hA). CorePlay is an idea for a JAM service that will allow developers to write actor-like programs on-chain.

I'm often involved in discussions with builders/users in various public channels like Element, [Polkadot Forum](https://forum.polkadot.network/u/bkchr/summary), or [Stackexchange](https://substrate.stackexchange.com/users/73/bkchr) to help solve their issues.

Besides the work highlighted above, I'm also very active in maintaining the [Fellowship runtimes repo](https://github.com/polkadot-fellows/runtimes/issues/created_by/bkchr) by providing reviews, helping with releases, and proposing changes of my own. I'm also very active when it comes to on-chain voting in the Fellowship, such as opening retention and promotion proposals for many members. I have taken part in one in-person interview to promote Sebastian Kunert from rank two to rank three (the rank of a member, the first rank in which they get actual voting rights in the Fellowship).

Thank you!

#1725 Retain Bastian Köcher at Fellowship Rank VI

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