Nutbox × Astar AMA on 2021-08-31 (Q&A Excerpts)
Q-1: Could you please introduce Astar and the core team of Astar briefly?
Sure! I will start by introducing Astar Network
Astar Network(formerly Plasm Network) is the multi-chain DApp hub on Polkadot that supports Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), WebAssembly, Layer2 solutions, and DApp Staking. And Shiden is Astar's canary network which recently won the Kusama auction and became the 3rd parachain on Kusama Network.
As a high-performance smart contract platform, Astar supports both Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and WASM through our unique X-VM, which means both Solidity and WebAssembly-based smart contracts can be deployed and interacted with on Astar, bringing greater composability and interoperability to the DApp ecosystem.
At the same time, Astar will become a scalable DApp hub by supporting layer2 solutions including Optimistic Rollup and ZK Rollup. Building DApps in the Polkadot ecosystem through Astar will have a cheaper gas cost, greater throughput, and faster finality for both users and developers.
Besides that, Astar is a multi-chain DApp hub with Polkadot XCMP and bridges to Ethereum, BSC, Cosmos, Solana, and so on. And Astar's unique economic mechanism including DApp Staking and Operator Trading enables DApp developers and community members to reap the rewards of an active technology ecosystem and further promote it.
That's a brief introduction about Astar's core features. And I will continue to introduce our achievements.
Astar(Plasm) was officially launched in 2018, and in July this year, Shiden, the canary network of Astar, successfully won the third parachain slot on Kusama. Astar was the first project in Parity's Substrate Builders Program, and received investment from institutions including Fenbushi Capital, Binance Labs, Huobi Ventures, OKEx Blockdream Fund, DFG, Hashkey Capital, Hypersphere, and etc.
So far, Astar has received 7 development grants from Web3 Foundation, ranking first in Polkadot ecosystem projects, and has realized and delivered many significant development tasks for the Polkadot ecosystem, including ink! Playground、ECDSA for Polkadot.js、Plasma module and etc. After the first two lockdrops, Astar now has over 150,000 ETH locked upon it, with a global community covering over 8 languages. Shiden is currently in the PoS phase, and we will enable EVM, DApp Staking, and WASM in the coming month.
As for the core team, I could say Astar has one of the first-tier teams in the blockchain community of Asia. Sota Watanabe is the CEO of Stake Technologies, which is the startup behind Astar/Shiden. He is the youngest blockchain researcher at the University of Tokyo and task force member of the Trusted Web Promotion Council led by the Cabinet Office of the Japanese Government.
Takumi, the CTO of Stake Technologies, was the world finalist of the ACM-ICPC International Collegiate Programming Contest 2016|2017 and he was selected one of the top 16 best U25 engineers by the Japanese Government in 2018.
Our lead developer, Alex Krupenkin, graduated from ITMO and an early development contributor for Ethereum and Substrate.
Besides them, we have several a silver medalist of the international physics Olympics in 2012 and 2013, several medalists in ACM-ICPC, and Masters and PhDs from the University of Tokyo and Osaka University.
Q-2: What is the reason for the name change of Astar?
Yes, that's a question I saw a lot in the community.
First, I explain the relationship and differences between the several names in our ecosystem (Astar, Shiden, Dusty and Plasm).
Astar is the multi-chain DApp hub on Polkadot, which will become a Polkadot parachain in the coming auction.
Shiden is the canary network of Astar and the multi-chain DApp hub on Kusama.
Dusty is the testnet for Astar and Shiden. Dusty has no economic value.
And Plasm is the previous name for Astar.
We rebrand Plasm to Astar recently. Because the name "Plasm" often confuses people with the layer2 solution "Plasma".
Astar was a scalable smart contract platform on Polkadot supporting Plasma. But now Astar is much more than that. Besides layer2 scalability, we have multi virtual machines, multi-chain bridges, and DApp Staking.
Astar is the multi-chain, multi-VM DApp Hub on Polkadot now. And the name "Plasm" often misleads new developers, media, and investors with the impression that Plasm is only a layer2 project. That’s why we need to change the name and rebrand to "Astar".
Q-3: Could you please explain why was Astar deployed on Polkadot?
Yes, Astar Network is one of the ealiest projects in the Polkadot ecosystem. We started in 2018, maybe we are the first project in the Polkadot ecosystem.
There are many reasons for us to choose Polkadot, and I will focus on two of them.
First, the Polkadot/Kusama relay chain doesn’t support smart contracts by design. And it is unnecessary and impractical for all developers to develop a parachain with substrate considering the cost for auction, the techical difficulty and limited parachain slots. So all developers in Polkadot/Kusama ecosystem need parachains supporting smart contracts like Astar/Shiden.
Besides that, we believe interoperability between blockchains matters a lot to developers in the Web 3.0 era. And through XCMP of Polkadot/Kusama, DApps on Astar/Shiden are empowered with greater interoperability. For example, developers can easily implement and realize confidetial through XCMP between Astar and Phala.
Q-4: What's the difference between Astar and Moonbeam? Seems like these 2 projects so similar. So please kindly explain us?
Astar and Moonbeam look similar because both Astar and Moonbeam support smart contracts. But there are a lot of differentiators between us actually.
- Astar 100% supports both EVM and WASM. But Moonbeam focused on EVM compatibility only.
- Astar supports layer2 scaling solutions like Rollups. But Moonbeam does not.
- Astar will have bridges to blockchains besides Ethereum including BSC, Solana, Difinity and etc. But Moonbeam will focus only on Ethereum bridge as the information they released.
- Astar has the unique DApp Staking and Operator Trading mechnism. No other blockchain has them.
Q-5: Why did Astar Mainnet upgrade from PoA to PoS?
Because PoA is not decentralized. PoA was just designed to be a transition period before Shiden enters PoS.
Shiden has activated PoS on August 20. This means that selected collators can run nodes and produce blocks so that they can earn staking rewards. With Shiden having over 30 collators, now we could say Shiden becomes a decentralized PoS blockchain now.
Q-6: What is the collaboration between Nutbox Walnut & Astar ?
Nutbox Walnut will deploy its smart contract on Shiden Network and enters the Astar ecosystem.
So Nutbox Walnut will be one of the DApps running on Shiden. And we will have Nutbox Walnut as one of the promising DApps in our ecosystem.
And through the unique DApp Staking mechanism of Shiden, the community members will be able to stake SDN tokens for Nutbox Walnut to earn Nutbox Walnut tokens and SDN tokens in return.
Q-7: How could we participate in Astar ecosystem? Any community development plan for Astar Network?
There are several ways to participate in the Astar ecosystem.
If you are a developer, we are an open-source project and you could contribute to Astar/Shiden through GitHub https://github.com/PlasmNetwork/Astar.
Besides that, Astar has our Builders Program [https://github.com/PlasmNetwork/builders-program] and Growth Program [https://github.com/PlasmNetwork/growth-program]. We provide grants to infrastructure projects looking forward to developing on Astar/Shiden. And we provide grants, technical support, and marketing support to promising DApp projects in the Astar/Shiden ecosystem through the growth program.
If you are not a developer, you could participate in Astar ecosystem through DApps, Polkadot Parachain Auction, Staking, and our community program.
First, you could use the DApps including DEXs, NFT markets, DeFi protocols on Shiden Network as soon as next month.
Second, you could contribute to Astar Network by locking your DOTs in the coming Polkadot Parachain auction and earn Astar token in return. The date has not released by Paity yet. But you could follow our Twitter https://twitter.com/astarnetwork and Medium https://medium.com/astar-network for the latest updates.
Third, you could get SDN tokens through exchanges and use DApp Staking to stake SDNs and support the DApp project you like (Nutbox Walut for example) and earn SDNs in return.
Last, Astar is a community-driven project, and we need the community members to help grow our ecosystem. We have created an open community program where every community member can join and support the Astar ecosystem. Please see the details here: https://medium.com/astar-network/astar-community-program-ee30b34f50f9
Q-8: I see Astar has announced many collaborations with various DAPPs recently, how does it benefit Astar and Polkadot ecosystem?
Thank you for mentioning that. Yes, many DApps has decided to deploy on Astar/Shiden because of our core features, high performance and our builders program.
We think DApps are the most important to smart contract blockchains. They bring value to the network.
The network effect is important. By incubating our own ecosystem and attracting more DApps from Ethereum, BSC, and other blockchains, Astar/Shiden is growing. We are bringing more value to the Astar and Polkadot ecosystem.
Q-9: Could you tell us what is the Token distribution plan of Astar or Shiden?
I mentioned Astar/Shiden is a community-driven project. So we distributed most of the native tokens (60% of the total supply) to community members through lockdrops and PLO.
Users lock ETHs or DOTs/KSMs, and get ASTAs/SDNs. And the ETHs/DOTs/KSMs are returned once the locking period ends. ETHs/DOTs/KSMs are locked in secure smart contracts.
And above is the token distribution graph.
Since Lockdrops has ended with over 150K ETH locked and Kusama PLO has also ended, the only distribution before listing will be Polkadot Parachain Auction.
Many projects are just projects that make deceptive promises created by cloning existing ones and are similar to existing ones. Do you have features that are unique to you, that you have developed and that make you special?
I have mentioned the core differentiators and advantages of Astar/Shiden Network in Q-1 also Q-4. Since it is important, I will stress it again. There are four key differentiator, X-VM, Layer2 Scalibilty, Multi-chain Bridges/ Cross-chain Interporability, and DApp Staking. Besides, we don't clone, we build. All our code is open-source, you can check freely through https://github.com/PlasmNetwork.
The date has not released by Paity yet. But you could follow our Twitter https://twitter.com/astarnetwork and Medium https://medium.com/astar-network for the latest updates.
Do Token holders have right to participate in the governance of the project? On what kind of decisions can they vote on about the project?
Yes, Astar Network and Shiden Network will become DAO evetually. The DAO module and governance mechanism has been proposed, you could check through our forum: https://forum.astar.network/ . The on-chain DAO will be implemented after we eabling all the features. Users will be able to propose and vote on any topic through staking.
Do you have an ambassador program available? If yes, how can I join it? And may I know what’s the benefit available for the ambassador?
Yes, we do have an ambassador program running. As a community-driven projects, all of our local community are managed by ambassadors from all over the world. Being an ambassador will give you the chance to earn token rewards and work with the team to contribute to the projects, even join the team. The details and applications can be found: https://github.com/PlasmNetwork/growth-program#ambassador-program
About Nutbox
Nutbox Introduction
DOCS | https://docs.nutbox.io
Website | https://nutbox.io/
Nutbox Guide
EN|https://blog.nutbox.io/@nutbox.mine/the-new-ui-of-nutbox-is-about-to-online-and-the-tutorial-of-new-ui
CN|https://blog.nutbox.io/@abcallen/wherein-1615536657147-s
Contact US
Wechat：cnsteem
Steem：https://blog.nutbox.io/@nutbox.mine
Discord：https://discord.gg/zPkMuGY
Telegram：https://t.me/joinchat/PrBejBh_Grp6lFZEGArDpA
Vote For US
Please vote for our witness nutbox and smt-wherein:
nutbox
https://steemconnect.wherein.mobi/sign/account-witness-vote?witness=nutbox&approve=1smt-wherein
https://steemconnect.wherein.mobi/sign/account-witness-vote?witness=smt-wherein&approve=1