Astar Network Explained

aax-2@newsletter.paragraph.com (AAX) — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 08:05:35 GMT

Astar Network, formerly known as the Plasm Network, is the multi-chain Polkadot dApp hub which acts as the gateway for connectivity between Polkadot and multiple Layer 1 blockchains. The project’s aim is to build the premier multi-chain smart contract hub supporting DeFi, NFTs and DAOs. With 150K+ ETH in total value locked (TVL) through lockdrops, 30K community members, and over 40 ecosystem projects integrated with the network, Astar Network is well on its way to achieving that goal. Kickstarting the protocol’s growth, Astar Network raised 2.4M in a funding round led by Binance Labs. This also marked Binance’s first investment from their $10M Polkadot ecosystem fund.

How Astar works

Astar Network is a critical component for increasing the scalability and interoperability of the Polkadot Relay Chain, which by design does not support smart contracts. The protocol acts as a Substrate blockchain providing the methods for developing scalable dApps and supporting various Layer 2 solutions. And as a permissionless public blockchain, anyone can join and build innovative applications based on the Astar Network.

Blockchains do not scale by design because of the decentralized consensus mechanism. Transactions Per Second are much lower compared to centralized databases, and you may know this from the experience of waiting for an unconfirmed transaction – which take quite a long time depending on network congestion. Astar aims to raise the scalability of Polkadot.

Developers are central to community growth for any blockchain, which is why Astar has taken a slightly different approach when it comes to distributing block rewards. Whereas blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum only allocate transaction rewards to miners, the Astar protocol divides the rewards right down the middle, allocating 50% to block validators and 50% to the developers – who after all make valuable contributions to the ecosystem and increase the value of the network.

Smart contract administrators are chosen by other dApp nominators, who take 20% of total rewards going to developers. This mechanism creates an incentive for the nominator to stake on smart contracts to increase the value of the ASTR token. Operators can also receive semi-permanent rewards through stakes they themselves manage on smart contracts.

If you’re looking into Astar, you will soon see the name Shiden Network come up. It is the parallel chain to Astar and it is deployed to the Kusama Relay Chain – a public pre-production environment for Polkadot that allows any developer to experiment and test new blockchains or applications before going live on Polkadot.

The ASTR token

Currently, the protocol’s native ASTR token has four main use cases: rewards given to dApp operators, transaction fees paid by users, governance features such as voting, and staking for network validators. There is a total supply of 7,000,000,000 ASTR tokens, of which about 2 billion are currently in circulation. The token ranks 239 on CoinMarketCap. Its market capitalization is $211 million at the time of writing. The token has only been trading on the open crypto markets for a short period of time, and most of its price action has seen a downward trend. During the bull market, ASTR reached its current all-time high of $0.2781, but it currently trades at about 60% below that, at $0.106.

However, there is a lot of potential upside for Astar Network, as it is a relatively new player and it has only recently started riding the Polkadot wave.

In January 2022, Astar received $22 million in strategic funding from crypto venture capital firms Polychain, Alameda Research, Alchemy Ventures, Animal Ventures, Crypto.com Capital, Digital Finance Group, GSR, Injective Protocol, and Scytale Ventures, among others. In February, the project launched the $100 million Astar Boost Program fund to provide liquidity and to offer financial support and incentive programs to smart contract developers. The new Astar Boost Program has already supported liquidity and incentives for decentralized finance applications on the protocol, including decentralized exchanges ArthSwap and PolkaEx and multichain asset bridge Celer cBridge.

Astar Network 介紹

aax-2@newsletter.paragraph.com (AAX) — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 08:02:56 GMT

Astar Network，前身為 Plasm Network，是多鏈 Polkadot dApp 的樞紐，擔任 Polkadot 與多個 Layer 1 區塊鏈之間連接的通道。該項目的目標是建立支持 DeFi、NFT 和 DAO 的首要多鏈智能合約中心。它通過 lockdrops 鎖定了 15 萬枚 ETH，擁有 3 萬個社區成員以及與 40 多個生態系統項目集成，Astar Network 正朝著實現此目標邁進。為了啟動該協議的發展，Astar Network 在 Binance Labs 贊助的一輪融資中籌集了 240 萬。這也是幣安用於 Polkadot 生態系統 1000 萬美元基金的第一筆投資。

Astar 的運作原理

Astar Network 是提高 Polkadot 中繼鏈可擴展性和互操作性的關鍵組件，該鏈在設計上不支持智能合約。該協議作為一種 Substrate 區塊鏈，提供開發可擴展 dApp 和支持各種 Layer 2 解決方案的方法。作為一種無需經過許可的公共區塊鏈，任何人都可以加入並構建基於 Astar Network 的創新應用程序。

由於去中心化的共識機制，區塊鏈在設計上不支援擴展。與中心化數據庫相比，每秒交易量要低得多，你可能經歷過等待尚未確認的交易——這需要相當長的時間，並且取決於網絡擁塞。 Astar 旨在提高 Polkadot 的可擴展性。

開發人員是任何區塊鏈社區發展的核心，這就是為什麼 Astar 在分配區塊獎勵時採取了略微不同的方法。比特幣和以太坊等區塊鏈僅將交易獎勵分配給礦工，而 Astar 將獎勵分成了兩部分，將 50% 分配給區塊驗證者， 50% 分配給開發人員——畢竟他們都為生態系統做出了有價值的貢獻並增加了網絡的價值。

智能合約管理員由其他 dApp 提名人選擇，他們將總獎勵的 20% 分配給開發人員。這種機制激勵提名人在智能合約上進行質押，以增加 ASTR 代幣的價值。運營者還可以通過他們自己在智能合約上管理的股份獲得半永久獎勵。

如果你正在研究 Astar，你很快就會看到 Shiden Network 的名稱。它是 Astar 的平行鏈，且被部署到 Kusama 的中繼鏈——Polkadot 的公共預生產環境，允許任何開發人員在 Polkadot 上線之前試驗和測試新的區塊鏈或應用程序。

ASTR 代幣

目前，該協議的原生 ASTR 代幣有四個主要用例：給予 dApp 運營者的獎勵、用戶支付的交易費用、投票等治理功能以及網絡驗證者的質押。總供應量為 70 億個 ASTR 代幣，其中約有 20 億個代幣正在流通。該代幣在 CoinMarketCap 上排名第 239 名。在撰寫本文時，其市值為 2.11 億美元。該代幣僅在公開的加密市場上交易了很短的時間，其大部分價格走勢都出現了下跌趨勢。在牛市期間，ASTR 達到了目前的歷史新高 0.2781 美元，但目前交易價格比該水平低約 60%，為 0.106 美元。

然而，Astar Network 仍有很多潛在的上升空間，因為它是一個相對較新的參與者，而且它最近才開始跟上 Polkadot 的浪潮。

2022 年 1 月，Astar 從加密風險投資公司 Polychain、Alameda Research、Alchemy Ventures、Animal Ventures、Crypto.com Capital、Digital Finance Group、GSR、Injective Protocol 和 Scytale Ventures 等獲得了 2200 萬美元的戰略資金。在 2 月，該項目推出了 1 億美元的 Astar Boost Program 基金，以提供流動性並為智能合約開發人員供財務支持和激勵計劃。新的 Astar Boost Program 已經支持協議上去中心化金融應用程序的流動性和激勵措施，包括去中心化交易所 ArthSwap 和 PolkaEx 以及多鏈資產橋 Celer cBridge。