Based on the concept that blockchain technology’s future can be multi-chain, Moonbeam is a developer-friendly cryptocurrency which aims to offer compatibility with the current Ethereum network as well as the corresponding creation tools.
It was announced in January of 2020 from Derek Yoo of Pure Stake, Moonbeam dApp developers can make use of Polkadot’s unique speed and bridging capabilities while also guaranteeing full compatibility with Ethereum.
Because Moonbeam is built on Substrate which is the framework for blockchain-based development created by Parity Technologies, it offers more than just the EVM implementation. Moonbeam’s protocol functions as an extremely specific layer 1 chain that is capable of mirroring the Web3 RPC of Ethereum, account keys subscriptions, logs and many more.
It’s also able to enhance Ethereum’s core features by adding additional features like on-chain governance, Staking, cross-chain integrations, and more.
In this way, developers can easily implement any of their current Solidity smart contracts as well as dApp Frontends on Moonbeam with only minor modifications. Furthermore, Moonbeam is a parachain that is part of the Polkadot network, which means that it is also able to take advantage of all Polkadot’s advantages, including higher processing speeds, lower costs as well as industry-standard security.
Leapfrogging The Competition
Since its beginning, Moonbeam has secured significant alliances and backing from a group of industry leaders, innovative projects and investors. 2021 was also an exciting year for Moonbeam’s Moonbeam team as they began preparing for the Kusama para chain auctions and connections with various networks and also dominated the DeFi market.
Moon river Moon river, the Moonbeam’s partner network has had a particularly impressive experience in crowd loans with more than 205.935 KSM was received from 5,977 people around the world and helped the network win the Kusama second para chain auction.
In the wake of this win the development team is busy implementing Moon river’s five-phase launch plan on Kusama.
The first phase of Moon river’s launch began in the middle of July when the team began making blocks of Kusama to lay the foundation for the subsequent phases.
On the 29th of July Moon river launched Phase One of the five-phase launch process. From that point, the platform has begun decentralizing, bringing community-led collaborators to its group, while releasing numerous tech-related upgrades.
As of now, the total locked value (TVL) of DeFi-related projects on Moon river is around $85 million and includes notable projects such as Sushi Swap, Solar beam, Anyswap, Free River, Sea Dex, and many others already taking advantage of the potential of the network.
Frax Finance, a promising fractional-algorithmic stable coin protocol, has deployed its protocol on Moonbeam, allowing users and teams in the Polkadot and Moonbeam ecosystems to access highly scalable, stable, and on-chain money.
The DeFi Project Cream Finance has announced plans to bring credit and loan services on Moonbeam starting with the first launch on Moon river. DODO which is an off-chain, decentralized exchange and liquidity provider, is also using Moonbeam to integrate the assets of Polkadot as well as its other para chains on its exchange platform, without having to make major changes to the current code.
Lido is the biggest liquid staking derivatives platform that runs in conjunction with Ethereum and Terra and Terra, has also announced an alliance in partnership with Moonbeam to provide liquidity staking to the Polkadot ecosystem.
Additionally, Moonbeam has already integrated various popular solutions such as The Graph, Biconomy, On Finality, Ocean Protocol, Band Protocol, Chain link, Polk assembly, Open Zeppelin, Automata Network, Waffle and Mars, my NFT, Covalent, and many more to expand its capabilities and establish it as a true multi-chain network.
The Road Ahead
Moonbeam is now one of the biggest players in Polkadot’s rise to prominence in the DeFi industry. Moonbeam continues to partner with established solutions to increase its range of services, thereby laying the foundation to enable the next generation of blockchain-based solutions.
Moonbeam founder Derek Yoo notes, “In the first six weeks since we’ve launched Moonriver in the first week, we have seen 2.5M transactions as well as 128K wallet addresses that were created and more than $256 million of TVL being deposited.
In short, we have seen a significant amount of attention and use of the network in very short period of time across DeFi, gaming, and NFT instances.”
The platform’s widespread popularity, Yoo adds, “Much of this popularity is due to moonriver’s Ethereum compatibility Moonriver provides, making it extremely easy for organizations to add onto the platform.
However, we are also developing exclusive capabilities that are only available as Moonriver is built on Substrate which is also a para chain of Kusama. This allows us to expand the base EVM by integrating native cross-chain features to assets and remote chain functions and opens up new applications for developers.”
To date, Moonbeam remains the top para chain on Polkadot since there aren’t any other para chains capable of comparable features.
Contrary to other para chains that offer only a few advantages, Moonbeam grants developers the possibility of using the Ethereum features, and also provides an affordable cost structure, greater capacity for scaling and speedier deployments.