Following a $22 million financing and the announcement of a plan to launch 15 projects in April, ASTR’s stock soared 100 percent.
The Polkadot (DOT) ecosystem has begun to gain traction with the cryptocurrency world as the first chains come online and interface with Ethereum following the successful completion of its inaugural parachain auctions (ETH).
Astar (ASTR) is one such Polkadot-based startup that ended March on a high note after the multi-chain smart contract platform drew the interest of both retail and institutional crypto investors.
According to data from TradingView, the price of ASTR has risen 104 percent from a low of $0.107 on March 22 to a daily high of $0.208 on April 1 as demand for the token has soared 20-fold.
The completion of a $22 million investment round, the expansion of the Astar ecosystem through protocol launches and collaborations, and an increase in users and total value locked on the Astar network are all contributing to the rally.
Institutional investors are pouring money into the project
The successful completion of a $22 million funding round on Jan. 28 was a key step that aided Astar’s advancement in 2022.
Polychain, Alameda Research, Alchemy Ventures, Crypto.com Capital, and Digital Finance Group were among the fundraiser’s participants, as were other angel investors such as Dr. Gavin Wood, Richard Ma, and Keisuke Honda.
The funds will be used to help expand the Astar ecosystem to support both Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and WebAssembly, allowing developers to deploy existing Solidity contracts as well as Polkadot native smart contracts, following the mainnet launch of Astar on January 17th.
The Astar ecology is growing
Astar has seen many projects emerge on its network in the months since establishing its mainnet, and expects to see even more in April.
Astar Season is coming 🚀🚀🚀
Welcome to new friends just joining on @AstarNetwork in early April#Polkadot #Astar #cryptonews #blockchain #giveaway pic.twitter.com/6f1IPFa2DU— Polkadot Nation (@PolkadotNation) April 1, 2022
The month of April has been dubbed “Astar Season” by the initiative, which expects to launch at least 15 new projects on the network as part of its effort to attract new members.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols such as Avault and Alnari Finance, gaming protocol Astar Farms, and decentralised autonomous organisations AstridDAO and ADAO are all set to emerge in the near future (DAOs).
Astar also announced a new relationship with Oasys, a layer-one blockchain designed specifically for game makers.
The TVL network is on the rise
The inflow of new users to the ecosystem, which already has over 100,000 unique wallet addresses, is a third force moving Astar forward.
Another day, another milestone 💎 Feeling excited about all the growth we are seeing on Astar Network! pic.twitter.com/mGUTcb4Gb4
— Astar Network | WASM + EVM HUB on Polkadot (@AstarNetwork) March 29, 2022
According to data from Defi Llama, the total value locked on Astar reached a new all-time high of $1.16 billion on April 1 as a consequence of the influx of new users and the launch of several projects on the network.
Astar now boasts the highest TVL of all the Polkadot parachains, propelling it to the eighth-best EVM-compatible chain in terms of TVL.
$1.3B in TVL. No. 8 EVM Blockhain. LFG pic.twitter.com/RNH5pLs1fm
— Astar Network | WASM + EVM HUB on Polkadot (@AstarNetwork) April 1, 2022
Disclaimer: These are the writer’s opinions and should not be considered investment advice. Readers should do their own research.
