We’re excited to announce that our Astar zkEVM testnet is now live. In line with our Japanese roots, it’s called zKatana, which references swords with a curved, single-edged blade best known for their use by Samurai in fights.

This launch is another significant stepping stone in our journey to offering the most holistic tech stack, empowering builders and enterprises to tap into web3 securely. zKatana allows developers to test their ideas and enables us to confirm network functionality and verify our hypothesis on gas usage and other parameters.

Overview of Astar zkEVM

After becoming the leading smart contract chain in the Polkadot ecosystem at Astar Network, we’re now focused on facilitating EVM development while guaranteeing a secure, private, and scalable platform. Our Astar zkEVM is powered by the Polygon Chain Development Kit (CDK), facilitating the creation of cutting-edge, zero-knowledge rollups.

With Astar zkEVM we’re expanding further into the Ethereum ecosystem.

When choosing a blockchain environment to develop on, Polygon CDK was a natural choice as the most supported, technically advanced zk rollup solution.

Building on the Ethereum mainnet is expensive; ZK-rollups perform off-chain computations on Layer 2, enabling faster and cheaper transactions while still maintaining Ethereum's security.

Also, the zkEVM provides an Ethereum-compatible scalability solution for apps, allowing developers to use existing tooling and infrastructure for easier integration.

The Astar zkEVM offers:

Security inherited from Ethereum
High EVM equivalence
Speed and Scalability
Reduced transaction costs
Interoperability with existing EVM tools and chains

Astar zkEVM vs Astar Substrate

When we started our journey initially as Plasm, we were focused on building scaling technologies for Polkadot, which now provides us with the necessary understanding of scalability solutions to run a successful L2.

Astar zkEVM is simply a new addition to the existing Astar Tech Stack. It comprises a variety of tools and products to offer companies and developers the most suitable tech to build their products.

Astar Substrate is the backend technology powering our parachain and allows anyone building on it to tap into seamless interoperability across the Polkadot ecosystem. Secured by Polkadot validators, it offers access to WASM and EVM virtual machines and empowers devs through dApp staking, a mechanism to fund builders.

In comparison, Astar zkEVM is focused on providing enterprises with a secure, scalable, gas-efficient platform that allows them to use any existing EVM tooling and service providers.

Testnet Functionality and Launch Partners

Our testnet will have all the necessary features to enable extensive testing, including:

EVM equivalence: allowing devs to run existing EVM smart contracts on our zkEVM
Bridge: to allow bridging of testnet ETH to Astar zkEVM
A Faucet: to easily claim Astar zkEVM ETH
A block explorer to view block production

Additionally, we’ve partnered with a variety of crypto-native projects, and service providers to test our Katana testnet and trial experiences on top of it. Among the partners are:

Gelato: our zkRollup-as-a-Service (RaaS) provider working with us to implement an EVM equivalent zk-Rollup and maintain a smooth experience and reliable uptime.
Gelato Relayer: Enabling developers to build gasless UX, havingget transactions validated fast, reliably and securely.
Safe Core SDK: The Safe{Core} Account Abstraction SDK allows builders to add account abstraction functionality into their apps.
Web3Auth: Web3Auth is a simple, non-custodial auth infrastructure that enables Web3 wallets and applications.
Rarible: The aggregated NFT marketplace for Ethereum NFTs and Astar zkEVM NFTs
LayerZero: An omnichain interoperability protocol. They will create the full interoperability between Astar zkEVM and our Astar parachain.
SubQuery: SubQuery is designed to make building your own custom API for your web3 project as easy and painless as possible. Making indexing easy.
Pyth: Pyth delivers real-time market data from institutions to smart contracts on Astar zkEVM Testnet.
Safe: The most trusted decentralized custody protocol and collective asset management platform.
Startale: Startale Labs, Astar’s leading web3 infra provider.
Acurast: The Decentralized Execution Layer. Acurast revolutionizes and builds a path to real trustless apps by leveraging a completely decentralized off-chain Execution Layer.
Subsquid: Subsquid is a global network that provides free, fast and decentralized data access, without rate limits.
Band Protocol: Band Protocol is a cross-chain data oracle platform that aggregates and connects real-world data and APIs to smart contracts.

Ready to start testing?

If you are a developer and want to start testing Astar zkEVM, check out our docs for a guide on how to get started.

For dApps interested in exploring Astar zkEVM, sign up here to connect with our team: https://astarnetwork.deform.cc/astarzkevm/

What’s next?

We’re looking forward to testing our Astar zkEVM and working with partners to explore what’s possible and build out our launch campaign. In the meantime, you can already sign up to familiarize yourself with the process of using Astar zkEVM.

Once we’ve established parameters and confirmed the security of our testnet, we’ll move on to launch the mainnet.

Stay on top of all things Astar zkEVM by registering here.