Interview｜AmaraLink-The project selected in Moonbeam hackathon
——by Moonbeam
Update on Oct. 23rd
With the popularization of DeFi, a lot of public chain ecosystems led by Ethereum thrive. And some public chains have established funds with billions of dollars, which help develop ecosystems to ensure the activeness of their communities.
Moonbeam, as a smart contract platform fully compatible with Ethereum, plays a leading role in the Polkadot ecosystem and assists Ethereum-based projects to quickly enter into the Polkadot ecosystem. At the same time, Moonbeam is also developing its own ecosystem.
Moonbeam not only established the Moonbeam Grants Acceleration Program to assist in development of projects within its ecosystem, but also participated in and sponsored the Wanxiang Blockchain Hackathon, gathering outstanding teams from all over the world. AmaraLink, as one of the selected projects of this hackathon, assists cross-chain asset transactions with a cross-chain bridge, allowing users of other public chains to transfer assets through AmaraLink to Moonbeam. It’s going to expand Moonbeam’s communities.
Moonbeam also invited the Amara team to the interview:
1.How would you introduce AmaraLink to users who use it for the first time?
AmaraLink is a cross-chain bridge deployed on Moonriver, aiming to become a cross-chain hub between Moonriver and other popular public chains. AmaraLink plans to connect Moonriver and Polygon first. It is an important part for Amara to gain a foothold in the Polkadot.
Any user can safely and stably transfer other public chain assets to the Moonriver through AmaraLink, or transfer Moonriver’s assets to other public chains.
2. Why does Amara choose to develop AmaraLink on Moonriver, and what is the opportunity to choose to develop this project?
We actually proposed AmaraLink very early. In June 2021, Amara and Phala launched the plan of AmaraLink, and tested it on the BSC and Polygon. After continuous improvement, it finally formed the current AmaraLink.
Amara started with AmaraLend, a lending protocol within the Polkadot Ecosystem. Then we found that AmaraLend only supports assets within Polkadot, which is not enough, so we proposed AmaraLink to support other assets, bringing other popular public chain assets into Polkadot.
After careful consideration, our team chose to develop AmaraLink on Moonriver first. Since the first half of 2021, we have been investigating the progress and deployment environment of each parachain. After Moonriver first launched the EVM, we contacted Moonbeam’s Chinese team. We were deeply impressed by the compatibility and usability of the EVM, the openness and the rigor of the team. After several rounds of contact, we decided to develop AmaraLink on Moonbeam.
3.What are the advantages and features of Moonriver and Moonbeam compared with other public chains?
There are many excellent public chain teams on the market in terms of tech. But good technology is not enough. Some of our team members have made fortunes by devoting to public chains since 2018. Success requires many characteristics. Technology is one of them, but not the only one.
Moonriver/Moonbeam is a parachain of Kusama/Polkadot. We know that Kusama/Polkadot have many parachains. In a sense, the relationship between parachains is both cooperation and competition.
Moonriver/Moonbeam is a smart contract platform within Polkadot. It is fully compatible with Ethereum which is also the technical highlight of Moonriver/Moonbeam. It is the best entry for Solidity projects to enter the Polkadot ecosystem. It can be 100% fully compatible with Ethereum EVM, which is the highlight of its technology.
The Moonriver/Moonbeam team is very open and rigorous. And Polkadot needs to attract more users to join Polkadot. We think that Moonbeam will become such a role to promote the development of Polkadot. In addition, Moonbeam is more grounded than other parachain teams, it has technology development courses conducted by the Moonbeam Chinese community.
Moonriver/Moonbeam released EVM earlier, and many projects have been deployed on Moonriver. It maintains a leading advantage in the Polkadot parachain which is also very important. After all, users and parachain teams are limited, whoever seizes the opportunity has a great advantage. Finally, there will definitely be 2–3 top parachains standing out among all the parachains.
4.How is your project’s deployment progress in Moonbase Alpha or Moonriver? Can you share some experience, highlight moments or challenges during the progress?
AmaraLink beta has been deployed on the Moonbeam testnet, which connects the Moonbase Alpha with Polygon testnet and supports four test assets: BTC, DOT, USDT, and KSM. It laid a good foundation for the next official deployment on the Moonriver.
Amara has a professional and well-developed technical team. Thanks to Moonbeam’s complete development documents and close communication with the Moonbeam team, the deployment of AmaraLink on Moonbase Alpha is relatively smooth.
The biggest challenge in the deployment of AmaraLink is about security. Many people want to know how we can ensure asset security. The frequent safety accidents of the cross-chain bridge in the early stage have provided a lot of valuable experience for the development of AmaraLink. And our technical team has also reviewed many accidents and summed up the relevant experience. We have improved the safety performance of the bridge.
In addition, it is very important to be supported not only financially, but spiritually.. Moonbeam is open and inclusive, the team encouraged us a lot. We will continue to improve and try to do our best.
5. What do you expect from the perspective of AmaraLink’s development?
As an infrastructure tool, the followings are needed for AmaraLink’s better development:
1) Moonriver/Moonbeam assets. We hope to see more and more native assets on the chain, not just the mapped assets of other chains. Of course, this depends on the development of the entire Moonriver/Moonbeam ecosystem, so AmaraLink can support more types of assets with the development of the entire Moonbeam ecosystem.
2) Moonriver/Moonbeam ecosystem. We hope to see more projects deployed on Moonriver/Moonbeam, such as DEX, NFT, oracle, etc. Ecological projects within can cooperate and learn from each other and we do expect Moonbeam to take more constructive measures for its ecosystem.
3 ) Moonriver/Moonbeam community. The Moonbeam community is developing rapidly, but not rapidly enough. At present, We can see the sign which shows sometimes Polkadot resists changes, which is unsustainable for Polkadot. I hope that in the future, more users outside the Polkadot ecosystem will pay attention to and participate in the Moonriver/Moonbeam community.
6.What do you think about the impact of NFT and DeFi on the development of the public chain ecosystem in the future?
NFT and DeFi are two different areas.
Let’s talk about NFT first, then DeFi.
NFT has become an indispensable part of blockchain, and there is still a lot of room for innovation. But there are indeed some bubbles in the NFT. In the near future, we are going to launch NFT. We are willing to use NFT as an identity for loyal users, and users who hold Amara NFT will enjoy privileges and certain governance rights. We will even explore mortgage lending for top NFT assets in the future.
As for DeFi. “Assets on the chain provide soil for the emergence and development of DeFi”. The world needs banks, and the world on the digital chain also needs DeFi. When the public chain asset reaches a certain scale, there will be a demand for DeFi. As long as there are new public chains and new assets, there will be demands for DeFi.
Now let’s talk about the development of the public chain ecosystem in the future.
The competition of public chain ecosystems is actually the competition of public chain assets. Which chain has more assets of high quality will get more users and better development. This is why the development of public chain ecosystems is important.
Different public chains have the same performance, that’s why different DApps of different public chain ecosystems don’t have many differences. Of course there will be some innovative DApps among them, but in the early stage, scale is far more important than innovation.
The Amara team is very optimistic about the Moonriver/Moonbeam parachain ecosystem, and we are willing to develop new projects on Moonbeam. We hope that Moonbeam can maintain the positive development momentum after the Polkadot official parachain slot auction.
About Amara Finance
Amara is a top lending protocol within the Polkadot ecosystem. It highlights a multi-chain assets lending protocol AmaraLend and an asset cross-chain protocol AmaraLink. AmaraLend Beta has been deployed on Moonbase Alpha testnet and it plans to be officially deployed on the Moonriver network. Amara is striving to be the most popular lending market in the short term and introduce possibly more assets into the Polkadot ecosystem.
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