Publication > editorial > Paras Expands to Astar Network and Polkadot Ecosystems: Interview with CEO Riqi
Paras Expands to Astar Network and Polkadot Ecosystems: Interview with CEO Riqi
22
12 May 2023
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In the most recent Twitter Spaces with Astar Network's Ambassador, @you425you (interpreted from English to Japanese by @kaori_ruku), Riqi (CEO of Paras) has covered three important topics:
- Paras expansion to Astar Network and its NFT ecosystem
- Paras WASM Launchpad
- Paras future planning
Paras was first built on the NEAR blockchain for its advanced layer 1 blockchain technology, scalable architecture, and great user and developer experience, especially in onboarding Web 2.0 users. Since then, Paras has become one of the leading marketplaces in the NEAR ecosystem.
How Paras Expands by Going Multichain
Recently, Paras has been expanding its reach to encompass the Astar Network and Polkadot ecosystems through Launchpad and more products to come in the future. Regarding the expansion into Astar, Riqi explained that Paras believes the future is multichain, and going with the Polkadot ecosystem allows projects to be more adaptable in different blockchains. Astar Network serves as parachain for Polkadot, allowing Paras to easily tap into the Polkadot community. Additionally, as Astar Network significantly influences the Japanese community, which is big on manga and anime, many potential collaborations are viable through Paras’ comic product (Paras Comic). The synergies between Paras and Astar Network can be advantageous to create next-generation comics backed by NFTs.
Paras Launchpad built its smart contract using ink!, an eDSL written in Rust. This allows Paras to leverage Rust's advantages, such as its type-safety, memory-safety, and strict error-handling features. Additionally, the Web Assembly Smart Contract (WASM) that Paras Launchpad uses offers high performance and compact binary size, further enhancing the functionality of Paras' smart contract. The discussion continued with the differences between deploying WASM on NEAR and Astar (ink!), and the respective smart contract frameworks and deployment flows. Despite both smart contracts being written in Rust and compiled to WASM, NEAR and Astar (ink!) have different smart contract frameworks and deployment flows. With NEAR, Paras uses near-sdk-rs framework and near-cli as the main tooling, while with ink! Paras uses the ink library, cargo contract, and Polkadot.
Innovative Products that Paras Offers
Another highlighted point is Paras' innovative product, the Refundable NFT Launchpad, which he hopes will gain the trust of mainstream Web 2.0 users with its Refundable Features. In addition to this, Paras Launchpad aims to provide user-friendly minting tools for artists, creators, and entrepreneurs to create their own NFT projects with ease. The company has successfully implemented this strategy on its NEAR marketplace and plans to replicate it on the Astar network.
Furthermore, in response to the recent trend of NFT marketplaces lowering their fees, Paras aims to remain agile and adaptable. Since most dApps, not just NFT marketplaces, rely heavily on the crypto market, lowering fees may result in lower transaction volumes and sales. It may reduce the barrier of entry for not only crypto-natives but newcomers as well.
Despite the decreasing trend of the overall NFTs trading volume, Riqi is optimistic about the future of NFTs and believes that innovation in the space will play a key role in increasing overall trading activity. He notes that platforms like ETH and Solana's NFT ecosystems have remained strong and offer exciting opportunities for creators and collectors.
The discussion ends with Paras' NFT minting campaign during the WASM date, and the marketplace on Astar is expected to be available by the end of May. There are several projects that Paras plans to launch on Astar Network, and the team is working on bridging the PARAS token to ETH and BNB before bridging it to Astar and other chains. Once the token is available on these platforms, it will have utility in Paras' Loyalty program and DAO.
Check out Paras Launchpad: https://launchpad.paras.id/
More of the Twitter Space recording: https://bit.ly/ParasAMA_050623
