Acala Ecosystem Update — July 2021
Karura Swap launches with the first trustless trading pair, Acala at EthCC, and more.
With the genesis event complete, the Acala team has been powering through the Karura launch roadmap, strategically enabling the network’s DeFi protocols and operations, including: the native KAR token distribution, cross-chain transfers for KSM from Kusama to Karura, and the launch of Karura Swap, the first decentralized exchange within the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystem.
With over 57,937 accounts, 60,172 transactions, and 532 unique daily active users on Karura, it’s clear that the community is excited for the all-in-one DeFi platform, and counting down to kUSD stablecoin minting, LKSM liquid staking, and liquidity mining — all launching within the coming days.
Karura Swap Launched with KSM-KAR
Trading is now live on Karura Swap! After a successful bootstrap period, Karura is pleased to have launched its inaugural trading pair, KSM-KAR. With an opening liquidity of $3,410,992, the pair has since reached $6.063 million in total value locked with $11.28 million in trading volume over seven days — an impressive debut for the first trustless trading pool for KSM.
Thanks to its novel bootstrap mechanism, Karura is able to launch trading pairs in a warm-up mode that encourages a pool to achieve predetermined liquidity benchmarks before determining an exchange rate. The bootstrap mechanism prevents frontrunning and market manipulation while ensuring that each pair has adequate liquidity for a healthy and equitable launch.
In the coming days, new pairs will initiate the bootstrap process, including KSM-kUSD, which, when launched, will also feature the first KAR liquidity mining rewards.
KAR Now Supported on Exchanges
Karura is governed by a community of network owners who hold its native token KAR. Not only does KAR serve as the underlying token for transaction fees, but it also enables governance participation, incentivizes network nodes, functions as an algorithmic risk adjustment tool, and allows for teams to deploy Substrate pallets on the Karura blockchain, as well as new DApps on its platform.
Initially, the community could only secure an allocation of KAR by way of events like Build Acala and the Karura Crowdloan, but now, thanks to exchanges like Kraken, KuCoin, and OKEx, anyone can access Karura’s utility token, providing that they agree to each supporting exchange’s terms and conditions.
For a full list of exchanges, please refer to Karura’s market page on CoinMarketCap.
Acala VP of Growth Dan Reecer at ETHCC
In late July, the Ethereum community met in Paris for its fourth edition of EthCC, an annual conference examining the state and future of blockchain technology, and Acala was thrilled to be invited to speak. Acala’s VP of Growth, Dan Reecer presented an introduction to “Polkadot, Parachains, & Parachain Slot Auctions.”
Watch the video above to learn more about the foundation of Acala and Karura’s ecosystems, and why Ethereum, and other networks, can expect a composable, multi-chain future for decentralized finance.
Aside from speaking, Dan was able to meet with a lot of teams from around the Polkadot and Kusama community, as well as some of our backers like CoinFund and ParaFi. Acala co-hosted the Polkadot Picnic along with a few other parachain teams and VCs, which included representatives from Parity Technologies, Manta, HydraDX, Moonbeam, Interlay, and Centrifuge, to name a few.
Karura Community Calls
With the launch roadmap in progress, and network updates amassing, the team has begun hosting weekly Karura Community Calls in the official Acala Discord server and on Crowdcast. Each call offers an opportunity for the community to join the stage and ask questions or share feedback directly with the team, while receiving detailed updates on Karura’s protocols and upcoming initiatives.
For more info on the next community call, join the official Discord here — and be sure to register for the next Crowdcast event, in which the team will present details on Karura’s new liquidity mining program.
Karura Launch | KAR Liquidity Mining & Karura Dollar Minting - Crowdcast
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 — July 2021 was originally published in Acala on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
