The Astar zkEVM mainnet is near, and with the launch, some fascinating and innovative new dApps will be arriving in the Astar ecosystem. They will bring new use cases, business possibilities and DeFi opportunities for Astar users and token holders. We're about to embark on a journey to uncover all these projects arriving in force for the launch, so get ready; the dawn of Astar is coming from the east.

Starting with DEXs or decentralized exchanges, the essential applications of decentralized finance on a blockchain. They offer an accessible way to exchange digital assets for users and are foundational elements for more sophisticated DeFi applications. With the public launch of Astar zkEVM, numerous DEXs will be deployed, offering users a wide range of choices and uses. Let's have a look at some of them:

Quickswap, also known as “The Dragon”. No need to introduce it, as it's the leading DEX and AMM on Polygon and Polygon zkEVM chains. Quickswap offers different products to users, ranging from simple swaps to liquidity provision, farming and perpetual swaps, at very fast speeds and with very low transaction costs. The dragon has decided to build his new nest in our ecosystem, and we welcome him with great anticipation.
L2X, an innovative native decentralized exchange and liquidity hub, aims to deploy on zkEVM from day one and will bring cutting-edge DeFi features to our ecosystem, such as concentrated liquidity for efficient liquidity allocation and a Ve(3,3) token model, a revolutionary mechanism combining Curve's Vote-Escrow system with Olympus DAO's (3,3) model.
VeryLongSwap, from the land of the rising sun and based on the Very Long Animals community, this native Dex will provide additional swapping and farming options for Astar users, while offering other projects an IDO launchpad feature to launch their tokens on Astar zkEVM.
ArthSwap. Well-known and leading DEX and AMM protocol on Astar, ArthSwap is launching on Astar zkEVM and will bring its experience of the Astar ecosystem. They aim to become the hub and connector between all Astar ecosystems (Substrate, EVM and zkEVM), enabling efficient and smooth cross-chain transfers and trades of assets.

After decentralized exchanges, the second pillar of a DeFi ecosystem is lending and borrowing protocols. These protocols enable holders to use their assets as collateral to borrow other ERC20 assets, creating new opportunities for more advanced DeFi strategies. Astar zkEVM will welcome a range of well-known protocols:

KEOM. Born on Polygon and rapidly spreading to other Polygon zk chains, Keom is a suite of zkDefi tools and primitives, creating liquidity markets for lending and borrowing as well as leveraged asset trading and a decentralized on-chain order book with order matching, order creation, bid/ask spreads and market depth visualization. Keom is a leading project in the research and fusion of DeFi and zero knowledge proof technologies, and they have decided to come and innovate on Astar zkEVM.
C14 is a native Astar zkEVM protocol aimed at providing the most intuitive and straightforward lending and borrowing functionality for defi users. Its main feature is the lending of real world assets (RWAs) and short-term US Treasuries as collateral for borrowing other assets such as USDC tokens. C14 arrives in force on zkEVM with seamless integration and an efficiency mode (eMode) for highly leveraged strategies and efficient yield farming.

Derivatives and liquid assets such as liquid staking are the next pillar of our zkEVM DeFi ecosystem, giving users the opportunity to leverage their locked assets for other uses and hence maximize their yield with nested DeFi strategies. On Astar zkEVM, two main assets will be the foundation of these strategies: ASTR and ETH tokens.

Bifrost Finance, cross-chain liquid staking parachain on Polkadot. Bifrost is well known in the existing Astar ecosystem for creating the vASTR (Liquid Staking ASTR) and the vDOT (Liquid Staking DOT) tokens. Bifrost will leverage Astar's unique dApp Staking mechanism by extending the vASTR token to Astar zkEVM, giving users the ability to liquid stake their ASTR tokens on our Layer 2 while receiving dApp Staking rewards and using their vASTR in synergy with other defi protocols.
Ether.fi is the largest liquid re-staking protocol (LRT) on Ethereum and is committed to expand into Astar zkEVM, offering various innovative services for ETH holders to achieve efficient yield. From staking ETH on Ethereum mainnet from our Layer 2 to minting weETH (liquid asset) on Astar zkEVM directly and re-staking through EigenLayer, Ether is a valuable partner in bringing liquidity to our DeFi ecosystem to achieve high efficiency.

This concludes the first chapter of our journey to discover Astar zkEVM's growing ecosystem of dApps. With the launch of the mainnet just around the corner, get ready to unleash Astar's potential, try out cutting-edge dApps and take part in our launch campaign: Yoki Origins.

We’ll update this article with links to the next chapters.