Why we decided to back Astar on the Polkadot Parachain Auctions.

First and foremost, let’s make sure we all understand what Polkadot is.

Polkadot is an interconnecting layer for a set of other blockchains (called Parachains) mainly - but not exclusively - built using Polkadont's framework, named Substrate. It is only responsible for transferring assets from Chain A to Chain B with safety and in a reasonable time. It can also transfer Data but let’s keep it simple for now.

Now, unlike common belief, Polkadot DOES NOT SUPPORT SMART CONTRACTS. If someone wants to run code natively on Polkadot, then they are out of luck. They need to run on a para chain that directly connects to polkadot. But this is by design so don’t get surprised yet.

Now, what is Astar and why do we like it. Astar is a “Dapp” hub that allows the execution of Dapps (and smart contracts of course) from multiple blockchains and different technologies. For example, you can have an EVM smart contract and a WebAssembly Dapp run on the same platform, combining the best of both worlds.

Besides that, Astar wants to connect all these blockchains to the polkadot network. What this means is that a Dapp that works on Ethereum right now, by connecting to Astar it immediately becomes visible and accessible to the Polkadot ecosystem. This way, it gets all the benefits of being part of the potentially largest interconnected network of web3, without needing to “move” to another network (one that is directly connected to the polkadot ecosystem). Furthermore, the majority of existing blockchains are NOT built using substrate, making them incompatible with Polkadot. Astar solves this by acting as a middle-layer between those and Polkadot network. As long as a bridge exists between the chain and Astar, all the Dapps of this chain are connected to the polkadot ecosystem.

This is something that we are deeply interested in and part of our core thesis, so it immediately clicked and fitted the puzzle we are trying to solve here on Monday.

Why do we like Astar more than others? Because of the execution, the team has achieved until now. We met the Astar founders a few years ago in Japan when Polkadot was just getting built. From back then, they were actively working on helping the DOT ecosystem grow up, developing tools for the community, and working with Substrate to develop interesting experiments. We never met a team with that deep understanding of the Polkadot ecosystem before and we were excited to see what they will come up with. And they came up with Astar (previously Plasm).