Astar launches a zk-rollup on Ethereum and connects to the Polygon-developed Agglayer
Astar zkEVM is now public, advancing blockchain adoption as the first Layer-2 chain to fully integrate with Polygon’s AggLayer and begin to consolidate the divided blockchain landscape. This begins unifying state and liquidity and starts cross-chain interoperability between three major ecosystems: Polygon, Ethereum, and Astar Network. Over the next few months, additional projects will implement the CDK standard and immediately connect to the growing ecosystem on Astar, which currently sits at $700M.
Polygon’s unified bridge allows you to transfer any Ethereum asset natively to Astar zk rollup through a unified bridge. Instead of relying on 3rd party bridges to Ethereum, as other rollups and L2s do—even in a multichain L2 ecosystem—Astar zkEVM will join Polygon zkEVM in the unified bridge. Multiple zk-rollups can be created, optimized, and connected through a shared trustless bridge to Ethereum.
Rapid Adoption of Use Cases
After a successful testnet period with thousands of contracts deployed, resulting in nearly half a million transactions, Astar's mainnet launch has gained momentum, with developers like Deloitte building an NFT game for a Japanese Government Sports Agency, as well as a real-world asset project called Packs that tokenizes trading cards.
The launch of Astar zkEVM marks the first opportunity for Japanese organizations to build on a Layer-2 blockchain they know and trust. Hakuhodo Inc. and Japan Airlines Co., Ltd. are already collaborating on an exciting project called KOKYO NFT. The two enterprises are tokenizing local experiences and real-world assets as NFTs on Astar zkEVM, tightening connections between Japanese tourism and international travelers.
With the full Agglayer integration, Japanese enterprises have never been closer to the booming growth across the Polygon CDK ecosystem. Our zero-knowledge technology facilitates off-chain execution and data availability, known as a validium, an architecture that can lead to massive enhancement in scalability.
What to Look Forward To
Even at this early stage, AggLayer begins to feel like using a single chain, combining shared liquidity while keeping Astar Network a sovereign blockchain. Astar zkEVM is setting a new standard for web3 user experience (UX) with unified liquidity, community, and atomic transactions. This is a significant milestone in Astar's 2.0 mission to build a more equitable web, empowering communities across the world.
"Today is an important first step to welcome communities to a seamless multi-chain ecosystem. With Astar and numerous other ZK-powered chains onboarding soon, Polygon CDK and AggLayer are poised to bring internet-scale capabilities to the world of crypto." - Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon.
Before the mainnet launch, Astar adopted new tokenomics, focused on long-term sustainability, that allows projects from Astar zkEVM to join dApp staking as well. Astar will launch its mainnet fully serviced, with infrastructure partners like Startale, LayerZero, The Graph, Pyth, and Gelato’s industry-leading web3 services.
Yoki Origins: Experience Astar zkEVM
We’re thinking of fun ways to invite the community to engage and enjoy exploring with Astar ecosystem—that is what Yoki Origins is about. It is a journey to discover original Yoki characters inspired by supernatural creatures from Japan called Yokai. We invite you to collect and upgrade your Yoki while engaging talented artists, world-leading innovators, and web3 builders who have joined Astar zkEVM.
Join our discord or X account to meet other adventurers and stay on top of the latest alpha!