Weekly news from Kusama&Polkadot #45
1. Bit.Country Pioneer won the 52nd auction on Kusama
Bit.Country Pioneer has won the recent 52nd auction on the Kusama Network. By self-funding 3 500 KSM, it has been more successful than Quarts, a canary of Unique Network, which is a favorite for the next auction to get another slot for itself.
Bit.Country focuses on enabling everyone to start their own metaverse with the 3D world, NFTs or play-to-earn communities. In Bit.Country, simply everyone can start their own metaverse for their fans, followers or community members on Telegram & Facebook groups or Twitter followers.
2. Moonbeam is now integrated with Astar Network via XCM
Moonbeam XCM integration with Astar Network is now live. This integration allows those two most active popular networks on Polkadot to communicate and interoperate together.
Astar’s native token ASTR can now be deposited on Moonbeam- as xcASTR via XCM for use across the network in Moonbeams dApp ecosystem.
This integration will help Moonbeam developers to build out their projects and easily integrate with Astar’s ecosystem and WASM smart contract technology.
XCM is the “cross-consensus” messaging format, which allows sending an asset from one to another chain in the Polkadot network.
Moonbeam has just passed an amazing milestone. Since January 2022, when the network was launched, it now overpassed 10 million transactions. Moonbeam has over 200 projects building on the network and has nearly 300k wallets. There were deployed more than 6 800 smart contracts and enabled several cross-chain integrations with parachains such as Acala, Parallel, Interlay, Phala or Astar, and also with external blockchains through LayerZero and Axelar. Assets from connected chains can be brought to Moonbeam as XC-20 tokens, which is equivalent to ERC-20 tokens in Ethereum.
3. Bifrost Slot Auction Liquidity Protocol (SALP) migrates to Polkadot
Slot Auction Liquidity Protocol (SALP), migrates to Bifrost Polkadot parachain. From now on, it will support Polkadot slot auctions while enabling cross-chain DOT crowdloan contribution via XCM.
SALP protocol was officially launched on September 16, 2021, and since that it supported dozens of parachain and their crowdloans to obtain the liquidity necessary for winning the parachain slot on Kusama.
After Bifrost became a Polkadot’s 19th parachain by winning the 18th auction a few months ago, Bifrost aimed to achieve the same complete de-trusting as SALP on Kusama, where the entire process is executed through on-chain logic by using XCM protocol.
Bifrost is a Substrate-based protocol, which aims to unlock the liquidity of the staked funds for projects within the entire Polkadot ecosystem. It brings infrastructure, that enables liquid staking for using the underlying staked token in DeFi or in crowdloans thanks to the SALP protocol by creating vTokens, which are derivative tokens referring to the underlying staked token.
4. Composable Finance introduced the first Kusama-Polkadot bridge
Composable Finance introduced the first Kusama-Polkadot bridge, which is powered by Cosmos IBC. IBC (Inter Blockchain Communication) is simply a protocol that allows independent blockchains to interact with each other — to connect, transact, exchange tokens and other data, scale, and thrive in an interconnected network.
Composable’s vision is to unify the fragmentation of liquidity across different ecosystems. By enabling Polkadot and Kusama bridging via IBC, a solution already exists for Picasso (Composable’s canary network) and its launch to easily attract external liquidity that relies solely on trustless bridging.
This KSM-DOT bridge will be the core trustless bridge to launch Picasso and utilize DOT in the form of $ibcDOT as the base asset to attract TVL to the Picasso ecosystem. Picasso, a parachain on Kusama, will be then ready to launch its native cross-chain DEX called Pablo with DOT liquidity from the very beginning, serving as the base pair for the LBP that initiates the launch of transferability for the native PICA token.
This is an amazing milestone for innovation between Cosmos and Dotsama ecosystems because actually, it's the first time the IBC is being utilized to bridge assets outside of the native Cosmos ecosystem.
5. SORA introduced a self-custodial crypto debit card
SORA introduced a self-custodial debit card called the SORA Card. This fiat wallet with its own IBAN (bank account) and debit card functionality is integrated into a self-custodial crypto wallet with the Polkaswap DEX compatibility.
The SORA Card outperforms even the greatest mobile banks for any cryptocurrency holder who values independence, ownership, and privacy.
The SORA Card’s purpose is to provide everything you’d expect from a cryptocurrency-backed card without jeopardizing your sovereignty over your own assets. Spend, buy, earn, sell, stake and trade, all in one place — in your SORA Card mobile app.
6. Interlay announced partnership with Beamswap
Interlay recently announced a strategic partnership with Beamswap. Beamswap is one of the leading DEXes on the Moonbeam Network which enables features such as farming or an integrated EVM bridge, powered by Multichain.
Beamswap users are now able to add liquidity for the xciBTC/multiUSDC LP, where they will earn rewards in GLINT, rTIDE and INTR.
iBTC is BTC usable on any blockchain, not just in its native Bitcoin network. Thanks to Polkadot’s high interoperability, iBTC is easily transmittable and usable on Ethereum, Cosmos, Kusama, and other networks, so users are now able to use BTC in DeFi.
Consider supporting us by the nomination of your tokens to the Kusama or Polkadot validator going by the POLKADOTTERS name.
