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WHAT IS IT
Acala is a one-stop-shop DEFI hub. It is a layer-1 smart contract platform that's scalable, Ethereum-compatible, and optimized for DeFi. Acala has the following → Dex/AMM, LP pools, Lending/borrowing, Bridges, Staking, Liquid staking, and Minting of stable coin aUSD. Acala “The Defi hub of DOT” aims to have the aUSD stable coin as the standard for the DOT ecosystem.
Built with the substrate technology, and a parachain on Polkadot the Acala network shares the security and architecture as DOT, being natively interoperable and allowing for forkless upgrades, along with (XCM) Polkadot Cross-consensus Messaging so parachains can all communicate.
aUSD STABLE COIN
The aUSD stable coin is unique. It is different than other major stable coins like UST (soft pegged to the US dollar) and backed by Terra/BTC. aUSD is an “over collateralized Stable coin” meaning the amount you need to “Mint” will be more than you get. This allows for more stability
Being “multi-collateralized” you can MINT it with a number of different Dotsama ecosystem coins.
The aUSD stable coin is native to the Acala network (which is on dot), they have a Canary network on Kusama called Karura which has almost an identical architecture. On the Karura network, the stable coin minted is kUSD, there has been a proposal to change it to aUSD and have a unified stable coin through the dotsama ecosystem.
EVM+
Many new blockchains that claim to be faster and cheaper than Ethereum, will still keep the Ethereum compatibility, to attract Solidity developers allowing them to reuse existing toolchains and migrate existing contracts with minimal effort.
The Acala EVM delivers the following benefits and features from the best of both Ethereum and Substrate platforms:
COMPOSABLE DEFI STACK
Smart Contract Dapps deployed in Acala EVM can directly use native and cross-chain assets such as DOT, ACA, aUSD, renBTC, as well as directly use Acala DeFi primitives (DeX, stablecoin lending, and liquid staking), bridges, oracle infrastructure, native and cross-chain liquidity
ERC-20 tokens deployed in EVM can also be made available at runtime level, to be listed in the DeX, or (by governance approval) to be used as fee tokens. For example, Ampleforth will deploy AMPL contracts on Acala EVM, which will be made available as a native token, so it can be used to pay transaction fees and listed directly on our DeX.
FLEXIBLE FEES
With the Acala EVM, fees can be paid in any accepted tokens, such as ACA, aUSD, DOT, and wrapped BTC. More tokens can be supported as native fee tokens with a simple governance approval.
EVM ACCOUNT
Users can use one extension/wallet, and a single Substrate account to interact with the Substrate runtime, contracts in EVM, and wasm contracts, or a hybrid of these. If a user wants to use a particular Ethereum address, then simply link it with his/her Substrate address (basically proving the user owns both addresses), thereafter the user can just use the Substrate account with Polkadot{js} extension or alike to sign any Ehtereum transactions seamlessly.
This allows users to use all functionalities within Acala and cross-chain capabilities without managing multiple accounts or wallets.
EVM ACCOUNT ON-CHAIN AUTOMATIC SCHEDULER
On Ethereum and most other EVM platforms, there is no way to automatically schedule a transaction natively. This means many useful and perhaps essential financial services that we take for granted today, such as subscriptions, are not possible.
On Acala and Substrate, the automatic scheduler is a native feature of the blockchain. It is now made available in the Acala EVM in the form of pre-compiled contracts that any smart contract can call upon.
This will enable a wide range of use cases such as automatic and recurring payment rails, subscription services such as a Web3 version of Stripe, automatic profit-taking, reinvestment mechanisms, and a means to liquidate risky positions without external actors like keepers.
ROAD MAP
This is an updating Notion that shows the Acala roadmap and progression. Each window will have a detailed description of how the team is going to take action.
ACALA TREASURY
The primary objective of the Acala Treasury is to build up its DOT reserve to ensure Acala has a sustainable reservoir of DOT to lease a parachain slot from Kusama for the foreseeable future. The Treasury can trustlessly deploy the tokens to bond a parachain for itself to sustain its operation, bootstrap liquidity of the DeFi protocols on Acala to solve the chick-and-egg problem of market makers and takers hence benefiting the entire network.
The Acala Treasury is a reserve of digital tokens, native and foreign to the Acala ecosystem, stewarded by ACA holders, and funded from Acala protocol fees and community contribution events with the purpose of enabling long-term network self-sustainability and growth.
Deployment of the Treasury is primarily focused on
- Self-funding a parachain slots on Polkadot
- Bootstrapping protocol liquidity (e.g. provide LKSM, kUSD, or DEX pair liquidity)
- Platform and protocol operations and improvements
- Network security operations and enhancements
A further surplus can be deployed for
- Software and tool development
- Community, marketing, and event funding
- Any other future community Karura Treasury Proposals (KTPs)
TOKENOMICS
Like all other layer-1 networks the token ACA can be used for Governance, transaction fees, and the following...
The ACA coin as of April 4th 2022 has a Market Cap of $127m, and a Fully Diluted of $1.8b → only 7% of coins are circulating.
INFLATION
The website for Acala also claims to have 0% inflation but they are running a Liquidity Mining program right now. To celebrate the initiation of the Acala DeFi economy, the Acala Foundation is allocating 1 million ACA in liquidity mining incentives to the Acala Kickoff Rewards program.
https://medium.com/acalanetwork/earn-from-1-million-in-aca-rewards-during-acalas-inaugural-liquidity-mining-program-ed2469928541
Along with Messari showing an inflation rate of 123% for this year.
https://messari.io/asset/acala/metrics/supply
TEAM
Dan Reecer
Chief Growth Officer @ Acala and Karura. Previously launched Polkadot and Kusama @ Web3 Foundation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cHB4YP7frk 10:30
