In the crypto world, DeFi (Decentralized Finance) has emerged as an explosive financial application within the industry, and why wouldn’t it, given that decentralized borrowing & lending services is one of the far-reaching use-cases of cryptocurrencies.

The TVL (Total Value Locked) for all tokens, meaning the value of token assets locked in different DeFi protocol smart contracts, has increased tens of thousands of percentage points since DeFi started in 2017.

Following the Cardano Alonzo upgrade, which ushered in smart contract functionality, many teams have begun preparing smart contracts for deployment on Cardano’s blockchain platform, starting a whole new era of DeFi.

Just recently, Cardano and its native cryptocurrency ADA just surpassed 2 million ADA wallets, just months after hitting 1 million wallets in May 2021.

Astarter is a native launchpad on Cardano, bridging the gap that will allow DeFi builders to deploy fast, secure, and interoperable decentralized applications. As a leading DeFi infrastructure hub, Astarter is creating the first native launchpad on Cardano.

Benefits of Launching on Cardano

Cardano is one of the best blockchain platform choices for dApp deployment mainly due to the security, high performance, and sustainability the protocol offers, along with an already strong global community that is rapidly increasing. Let’s discuss what makes these features of Cardano special:

Security

Cardano is a third-generation, secure PoS blockchain platform, built using an extended UTXO model of Bitcoin that integrates an advanced functional programming language known as Haskell and engineering best practices to deliver a scalable, sustainable, and interoperable blockchain platform. Haskell as a functional programming language serves as the foundation for Plutus — Cardano’s smart contract programming language and Marlowe — Cardano’s domain-specific language for financial smart contracts.

Cardano uses Ouroboros as its secure proof-of-stake protocol to secure the network and is the first to be based on rigorous scientific research and academic peer review. Ouroboros delivers a scalable, secure, and energy-efficient protocol to power Cardano for generations and easily supports a large number of worldwide users.

High-Performance & Scalability

Cardano is a high-performance and scalable Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain capable of processing up to 250 transactions per second, with Hydra, Cardano’s Layer 2 scaling solution, in development to support a far larger number of transactions per second in the coming future. Cardano is also designed to be interoperable with other blockchains and legacy financial systems. Recently, Cardano also announced its plans to release a testnet version of the ERC-20 Converter allowing a bridge from Ethereum to Cardano.

Sustainability

Based on previous blockchain governance issues with other first and second-generation blockchains, Cardano and its treasury was designed from its inception to be sustainable with proper governance mechanisms to ensure consistent development of the ecosystem. Cardano’s design allows for its community to stake, participate, propose, and vote on various ecosystem proposals such as funding innovative ideas. Additionally, Cardano uses PoS instead of PoW, which gives Cardano an environmentally-friendly advantage over energy-intensive protocols (e.g Bitcoin and Ethereum 1.0).

Why Astarter?

One of the most promising aspects of DeFi on the Cardano ecosystem is the ability for projects to deploy directly on the protocol. Unlike other launchpads that deploy indirectly on-chain, Astarter is a native Cardano project and is to be deployed directly on-chain. Unlike other projects building on protocols like Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain, Astarter is a native smart contract-based protocol that accelerates DeFi projects on Cardano.

Additionally, Astarter has the backing of EMURGO. As the official commercial arm of the Cardano blockchain, one of the founding entities of Cardano, and the developers behind Yoroi Wallet, EMURGO offers extensive technical capabilities alongside a list of rich partnerships and deep understanding of the Cardano ecosystem. EMURGO can help any projects in the burgeoning DeFi space create decentralized applications on the Cardano protocol. Social cohesion and inclusivity are at the core of EMURGO’s mission to create socially impactful solutions based on Cardano, and it will fulfill this philosophy throughout the decentralized world with its investment in Astarter.

Most recently, Astarter launched a successful demo integration with Cardano’s official light wallet Yoroi Wallet. The EMURGO-developed Yoroi Wallet is a fast, secure, and simple light wallet that serves as a gateway for Cardano ADA and Ergo ERG holders to store and transact with their cryptocurrencies. Yoroi Wallet is also fully security-audited and seeks to be an everyday wallet for Cardano and Ergo users. Yoroi Wallet also announced plans to launch its dApp Connector within its wallet to be a bridge for Cardano ADA users to interact with other Cardano-based dApps, positioning Yoroi to be a MetaMask-like wallet for the Cardano ecosystem.

With the Cardano blockchain as a foundation and the backing of EMURGO, Astarter presents a robust set of functions demanded by top DeFi builders.

Some of the functions on Astarter include:

• IDO Launchpad: Projects can use this feature to raise money and deploy interoperable DeFi products
• DEX: Decentralized trading platform loaded with a wallet, data analytics, and DeFi lending
• Money Market Services: A money market is a digital asset exchange that participants can lend and borrow debt with various maturities.
• Technology Support Services: Technical support for projects launching on Cardano

Additional Recent Developments by Astarter

Over the last several months, the Astarter launchpad has upgraded development processes, and the overall user interface has made considerable progress in the following areas: project lists, staking, token issuance, and investments. Progress will continue in these areas. As far as staking is concerned, all related functions related to the Yoroi wallet will continue to be a work in progress. Additionally, the Launchpad Contract has deployed its contract and the PAB integration. Future optimizations are on schedule.

The team is also searching for solutions that can verify the staking process. Recent developments optimizing PAB have delayed the launch due to the potential technical impact of the upgrades. However, our team is constantly working to ensure that the latest technology is researched and included in our adaptive design.

In Conclusion

With the Cardano Alonzo upgraded, a new era of DeFi on Cardano has started. Astarter, the first native launchpad on Cardano, is leading innovation in this new era of DeFi on Cardano brought to fruition with strong support from EMURGO, the official commercial arm of Cardano. Astarter has a diverse set of functionality that includes an IDO Launchpad, DEX, Money Market Services, and Technology Support Services.

source：forum.cardano.org