To understand Astar Network, we will first start with Polkadot.
Polkadot is a solution to bring all of the independent blockchains (aka “parachains”) together into one big happy family. As it stands, there are endless number of blockchain projects all being built in their own “boxes” – but they don’t connect to each other and we cannot easily move assets or data from one to another. This is a problem that Gavin Woods saw when he was creating Etherum and immediately went to work to solve = Polkadot.
How does this play into Astar Network? Polkadot does not support smart contracts. If someone wants to run any code, they are out of luck, and need to use a “parachain” to connect to Polkadot. Enter Astar Network.
Astar Network is an application hub that allows the execution of smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps) across multiple block chains. If you have an app that works with Ethereum only right now – you can concept it to Astar Network and make it accessible to the whole Polkadot ecosystem. Each blockchain can be written in different “code” and Astar Network will act as the bridge between the two.
Essentially, Astar solves interoperability and scalability issues for Ethereum, Lightning Network, dApp Staking and any other layer 2 protocols.
The other issue that Astar Network solves is developer incentives and support. Most of the projects today require the developer team to seek grants and funding to build out their solution. Not easy. Early innovation can be difficult to achieve while paying your team and in many cases developers work for free or projects need to do less favorable approaches. This is where Astar and Shiden are looking to change the model to “Build-To-Earn”.
Essentially, the public, you and me, can go into the Astar/Shiden “store” of new apps and review what teams are working on. We can then directly stake our Astar or Shiden tokens into their projects directly. Of note, when you stake on a dApp you are referred to as a “nominator”.
This does a couple things. 1) The developers will get 40% of the block rewards and 2) The stakers will get 10% of the block reward.
If Astar Network is valued at $1B, essentially $40 million dollars will be distributed to developers each year. $10 million dollars would be distributed to nominators in tokens. It is a win-win for developers and supporters.
What do I like about Astar Network?
Astar Network does not shill or pump anything. They really want nothing to do with the money side of the house and really focus on building an approach where the community and developers benefit. This is unique in this space full of hype and greed. The team is also very strategic to ensure the proper fundamentals of the project to reward early supporters with their token supply and staking models.
Tokenomics
While subject to change, the most recent update is for Astar and Shiden to share the same maximum supply of around 70 million. This meets one of my personal criteria for early project investments.
What next?
Astar Network will be conducting a crowd loan very soon. In this you will lock Polkadot on a smart contract for a period of time in exchange for ASTR tokens. Refer to the blog page for a detailed post.
