Introduction
Background
Astar Network (formally Plasm) is a leading scalable smart contract platform on Polkadot supporting cutting-edge Layer2 technologies such as Plasma and Rollups. Plasma is a layer2 scaling solution that makes it possible for scalable computation by structuring economic incentives to operate the blockchain autonomously without the operator’s management. Ideally, it brings infinite scalability to the blockchain. Astar Network’s mission is to provide a scalable and decentralized application development platform that helps define the newly forming Web3 environment. It’s a permissionless public blockchain that everyone can join since it is built using an open-source Substrate framework. Astar has solidified itself in the Polkadot ecosystem by winning the third Parachain auction. It is a Substrate Runtime Module Library that allows developers to add Plasma functions to their Substrate chain. By adding an Astar Substrate Runtime Module Library, developers can get fully scalable blockchains within a few minutes.
The Network
Astar Network became a Polkadot Parachain as one of the first scalable Parachains in the Polkadot ecosystem. As Polkadot runs everything on the Kusama Subnet at this time. It has provided Shiden as their Canary Network. Astar Network consists of the Astar main chain and multiple Astar child chains. Astar Network provides various modules that allow the developers to utilize Layer2 solutions with ease such as the Optimistic Virtual Machine (OVM) module and DApps Staking module. The issue with the traditional DApp platform is that despite the fact that creators of applications are contributing to the ecosystem, they have to pay the price for doing so in the form of Gas. To solve this issue Astar divides the block reward into two, with 50% of the block rewards on the root chain distributed to DApps developers who increase the value of the network. The other 50% of rewards are distributed to the validators of the block. By doing this, half of the block rewards can act as a basic income for DApp developers, which not only incentivizes the validators but also incentivizes the developers of the platform. The basic idea is to delegate the Merkle Tree outside of the chain so it can process the transaction at a fast speed and only record the resulting information in the chain. In Astar, the person who is responsible for performing the off-chain processing and submitting the hash to the blockchain is called an Aggregator.
Security
The Astar Network changes consensus algorithms and reward designs step by step to maintain security. Specifically, it initially takes the form of a Proof of Authority that is run solely by Validators selected by the community. Next, it will change to rewards centered on participation as a Parachain. Eventually, Astar will move to a PoS, which is also used by Polkadot’s main Relaychain.
A Multichain Future
Astar is supporting both Ethereum Virtual Machine and WebAssembly. Developers can deploy existing Ethereum Solidity contracts as well as Polkadot native smart contracts. In addition to that, Astar supports multiple EVM and non-EVM L1 bridges. Currently, Ethereum bridges are already delivered by Multichain and Celer Network, and the Cosmos bridge is planned to be delivered in Q1. The team strongly believes in the multichain future. Astar is going to…
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