Shiden will participate in its 2nd crowdloan auction to continue to hold its Kusama parachain slot.
April 22, 2022 — Today, we are thrilled to announce that Shiden will be participating in the upcoming Kusama crowdloan! A crowdloan is how projects like Shiden Network, that are looking to become (or remain) Kusama parachains, get financial backing from people who want to support our project with a focus on decentralization. The funds we receive from the crowdfunding effort are used to lease our parachain slot on Kusama and will be returned once the lease period is expired.
After our first successful crowdloan campaign in June 2021, Shiden Network became a parachain on Kusama Network. However, the slot lease period is coming to an end on May 16, 2022.
Therefore, if we wish to continue for Shiden Network to be a parachain on Kusama, then we must secure another slot or extend the current lease period.
For those who are new to the concept, a crowdloan is not a typical loan. This is because contributors are locking rather than loaning their tokens for reuse. With Kusama crowdloans, financial contributions are locked (or bonded) into Kusama for a certain period of time, during which they are staked, and then returned to the “lenders” at the end of the period. It bears mentioning that if we don’t win the auction the funds will be returned to you and unlocked.
As part of our crowdloan campaign, we will be offering a reward in the form of our native Shiden token (SDN) — more details about our reward plan are below.
What is Shiden Network?
Shiden Network 紫電 is Astar Network’s wild and fast sister network. Built on Kusama Network for bold experimentation and early-stage deployment, Shiden is a multi-chain dapp hub that supports EVM and WASM.
On the surface, Shiden is identical to Astar. Both Astar and Shiden are multi-chain smart contract platforms with tokenomics designed to give an income to developers from dapp staking rewards. Both are multi-virtual machine blockchains, i.e. both support WASM and EVM smart contracts.
The differences arise when looking at each network’s purpose. Loosely speaking, we can view Shiden as Astar’s canary network. That is to say, all of Astar’s technical updates and initiatives first get implemented on Shiden. Only once the code is stable and secure does it get shipped to Astar. To be clear, however, Shiden is not a testnet, it is very much a real network with value-bearing assets.
Astar and Shiden are independent, standalone networks with different priorities. Shiden is wild and fast–great for bold experimentation and early-stage deployment. The governance, the spread of implementation, and the use cases are also different.
As such Shiden is to Astar as Kusama is to Polkadot. Whereas Astar is more conservative and values security, dependability, and scalability, Shiden prioritizes innovation, experimentation, and failing fast.
Why Securing a Kusama Parachain Slot Is Important
We are committed to supporting Shiden. As such it’s imperative for Shiden to secure its parachain slot.
Why is it important?
In short, Shiden is what allows us to innovate fast and stay ahead of the competition as we move towards realizing the decentralized Web3 vision.
Shiden Network is where innovation happens.
Moreover, the best innovations that arise from Shiden eventually make their way to Astar Network. Cross-chain bridges, dapp staking, and multi-virtual machine (i.e. EVM & WASM) smart contract support all happened on Shiden before making their way to Astar.
These innovations–and our ability to move fast–is what has enabled Astar Network to become the #1 TVL parachain on Polkadot since launching in early 2022.
Therefore, Astar needs Shiden to continue thriving.
This is why it’s imperative for our Shiden community to support us in the upcoming parachain auction!
The bottom line?
If you believe in Shiden and are passionate about our mission, then the best way to show your support is to get involved in the crowdloan campaign!
Kusama Crowdloan Auction Details
The Kusama crowdloan bidding period starts now and continues until we win the auction! During this period, we will aim to collect 15,000 Kusama tokens (KSM). Our Shiden token reward budget is 350,000 SDN. In other words, for every 1 KSM contributed you will be given 23.33 SDN, and if we collect less than 15K KSM the reward is more. If we win the auction and secure our parachain slot, then your KSM will be staked for the duration of the slot lease, after which they will be returned to you.
Please note, if the campaign is successful and we win the parachain auction slot, then Shiden will enter a retirement phase at the end of our parachain lease. On Kusama, parachain leases last 48 weeks. During this phase, you will be able to withdraw the tokens with which you participated.
If the crowdloan campaign is unsuccessful, then this retirement phase will begin at the campaign’s configured end, and you will likewise be able to withdraw your tokens. In other words, you will get your tokens back a few days after the auction ends if we don’t win.
Once our crowdloan campaign is open, anyone can participate by sending a special transaction that references our campaign’s index. Tokens used to participate must be transferable — that is, not locked for any reason, including staking, vesting, and governance — because they will be moved into a module-controlled account that was generated uniquely for this campaign.
For more deatials about how Kusama parachain auctions and crowdloans , you can visit this resource.
How to Participate in the Kusama Parachain Auction
The easiest way to participate in the crowdloan campaign is by going to the Shiden Website and participating through there. We will be publishing more specific instructions in the days to come, so stay tuned!
Announcing: The Second Official Shiden Crowdloan! was originally published in Astar Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
