Astar Network to launch smart contracts that support two virtual machines

Multichain decentralized application (DApp) protocol Astar Network will launch the second iteration of its smart contracts that supports both Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) WebAssembly Virtual Machine (WASM VM) on its mainnet on April 6. 

In an announcement sent to Cointelegraph, Astar Network founder Sota Watanabe explained that the new update would allow the creation of WASM or EVM projects within their network and allow the inception of new multichain apps. According to Watanabe, the new upgrade will let people connect their Astar project to any Polkadot or EVM-based ecosystems.

— Astar, Future of Smart Contracts for Multichain (@AstarNetwork) March 27, 2023

Within the announcement, the Astar Network team argued that simultaneously having two virtual machines and allowing interactions between the two is a “key success factor” in an emerging layer-1 blockchain. The team claimed that even though the Ethereum network brought about the Web3 revolution through smart contracts, it cannot build the future of blockchain on its own. 

To celebrate its launch, the Astar team invited community members to tune into a panel discussion led by its executives and various Polkadot developers to discuss how WASM can be utilized. Furthermore, the company will meet with its infrastructure partners who will build the foundations for the WASM environment.

Related: ConsenSys zkEVM set for public testnet to deliver secure settlements on Ethereum

In other news, Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Polygon has recently released its zkEVM beta to its mainnet, letting developers deploy smart contracts at lower costs. On March 27, Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal described zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs as the “holy grail of Ethereum scaling.”

Meanwhile, the Web3 Foundation, the team behind Polkadot, has once again argued that the Polkadot (DOT) token is not a security. On Jan. 26, the firm restated that DOT has already morphed away from being a security and said that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has welcomed talks with the firm.

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