Acala Ecosystem Update — Aug 2021
Acala’s Treasury Raises Over $61 Million, Acala EVM+ Introduces Full-Compatibility for Ethereum DApps, and kUSD Launches As First Stablecoin for Polkadot and Kusama.
With another momentous month behind us, it’s time again to take stock and express our gratitude to the incredible community supporting both Acala and Karura. In August, we celebrated the launch of kUSD Karura Dollar, the first stablecoin in the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystem, in addition to the introduction of liquidity provider rewards in Karura Swap.
Then the expansive ecosystem of developers learned they can now seamlessly deploy EVM-based smart contracts onto Acala EVM+ with minimal changes while utilizing familiar Ethereum tool sets like MetaMask, Truffle, and Waffle.
Finally, Acala completed its “Ready the Treasury ‘’ event, in which the community contributed over $61 Million USD to the Acala Treasury, the on-chain protocol DAO that will power the network’s sustainable growth through operational and economic initiatives. Read on for more details.
Acala Treasury Raises Over $61M USD
Acala has successfully completed the Build Acala: Ready the Treasury event, garnering over $61M USD in contributions from over 26,000 global community members. The event aimed to strengthen the Acala Treasury, an on-chain reserve of digital tokens owned and managed by ACA holders, while offering the second-to-last opportunity to become a network-owner before Acala’s launch on Polkadot (be sure to join the newsletter to stay informed on the next event, the Acala Crowdloan).
Acala Treasury Raises Over $61M from 26k+ Contributors Ahead of Acala’s DeFi Smart Contract…
All proceeds raised are donated from the Acala Foundation to the on-chain Acala Treasury, effectively serving as Acala’s Protocol DAO, upon launch. With a healthy treasury in place, Acala is well prepared for long-term network self-sustainability and growth through initiatives like self-funding future parachain slots, bootstrapping new DApps and protocols, and providing funding for Treasury proposals voted on via Acala’s on-chain governance system.
Acala EVM+ Brings Full Ethereum-Compatibility
The Acala engineering team also introduced the custom-built Acala EVM+ to provide a development environment analogous to Ethereum with a fully Ethereum-compatible experience for DeFi users (MetaMask), while still enabling the power, speed, and customizability of Polkadot’s modular blockchain framework, Substrate. With this upgrade, any DApp team can deploy their EVM-based smart contracts onto the Acala EVM+ with minimal changes.
This allows for DeFi teams to smoothly integrate with Acala, and the entire Polkadot ecosystem, for composability with billions in new liquidity, hundreds of thousands of new users, and development support from the top engineering team in the Polkadot ecosystem.
If you’re looking to scale your Ethereum DeFi project to Polkadot with Acala, get in touch.
kUSD Stablecoin Minting Now Live On Karura
On the Karura side, we’re powering through the launch roadmap of Karura’s full service, multi-chain DeFi hub on Kusama, and this month we launched kUSD stablecoin minting to deliver a decentralized, multi-collateralized stablecoin backed by cross-chain assets. Karura Dollar (kUSD) is the first stablecoin in the Kusama and Polkadot ecosystem. It not only empowers users to issue self-serviced loans by collateralizing assets like KSM — and soon, LKSM, and cross-chain BTC and ETH — but it also grants access for new DeFi opportunities, like the ability to provide kUSD liquidity to Karura Swap in order to earn rewards and take advantage of LP incentives.
Thanks to a strategic partnership with Gauntlet, a leading financial model platform for assessing on-chain risk management, Karura has implemented recommendations for kUSD’s collateral liquidation ratios and minimum collateral ratios. With Gauntlet’s risk management dashboard, our team will continue to monitor and optimize for stability, while working to thoughtfully enable more assets for collateralization.
Triple Rewards for LPs on Karura Swap
With kUSD launched, Karura also enabled the KSM/kUSD pair on Karura Swap along with a liquidity provider KAR rewards program. Now, LPs for the KSM/kUSD pair on Karura Swap can earn liquidity mining rewards as part of a triple dip rewards scheme, which includes: LP rewards, a trading fee share, and kUSD surplus share.
In addition, liquidity providers to the KSM/KAR pair can earn rewards through an ongoing 12 month liquidity mining program while also earning trading fees from the DEX. All early liquidity providers were sent retroactive rewards for their prompt support for the first trading pair on Karura Swap. To get started as a liquidity provider, check out the Karura apps guide and issue your own kUSD loan on Karura.
Acala and Manta’s Cross-Chain Composability
In the ongoing effort to scale the ecosystem, Acala has confirmed composability with Manta Network, as the two parachain teams have successfully implemented cross-chain communication on testnet using XCM, a cross-chain message system designed for Polkadot. The collaboration demonstrates composability within the Polkadot ecosystem, while highlighting Manta Network’s capability to privatize parachain assets. With this testnet integration, the two parachains are primed for new cross-chain DeFi use cases.
DeFi Ecosystem Events
Throughout August, the team presented at various events, including Celsius network’s Cointalk, which invited Acala’s VP of Growth, Dan Reecer to discuss parachain slot auctions and to explain why Acala chose to build on Polkadot over other networks.
Then in late August, Acala’s Co-Founder & COO Bette Chen joined Polkadot Web 3.0 Talks for its panel “Future Normal: DAOs and Decentralized Governance.” Watch the video below to learn more about Acala’s on-chain governance and novel Acala Treasury.
Until next time,
The Acala Team
About Acala
Acala is an all-in-one decentralized finance network offering a blockchain platform secured by Polkadot, as well as a suite of cross-chain financial applications that let users trade, issue self-serviced loans, become liquidity providers, access staking derivatives, and earn high-interest APY on their digital assets. The network is scalable, Ethereum-compatible, and optimized for DeFi.
Acala was founded in Oct 2019, and today has received five Web3 Foundation grants, has backing from Coinbase Ventures, Pantera Capital, Polychain Capital, Hypersphere and other top firms, and has a distributed team in New Zealand, China, Europe, Brazil, and the United States.
Linktree | Discord | Website | Twitter | GitHub | Wiki | Newsletter | YouTube
About Karura
Karura is the all-in-one DeFi hub of Kusama. Founded by the Acala Foundation, Karura is a scalable, EVM-compatible network optimized for DeFi. The platform offers a suite of financial applications including: a trustless staking derivative (liquid KSM), a multi-collateralized stablecoin backed by cross-chain assets (kUSD), and an AMM DEX — all with micro gas fees that can be paid in any token.
Linktree | Discord | Website | Twitter | GitHub | Newsletter | YouTube
Acala Ecosystem Update — Aug 2021 was originally published in Acala on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
