Acala Community Report: Overview of the Launch Update and Full-Stack Vision

Get the latest on Polkadot’s layer-one DeFi network with a summary of Acala’s January Crowdcast.

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Acala

5 min readJan 26, 2022

Acala Co-founder Bette Chen recently joined Chief Growth Officer Dan Reecer for a community call and Crowdcast presentation on the progress of Acala’s ongoing launch. The team has been implementing its goals strategically, revealed through an enlightening discussion between them as they shared announcements about what’s next during this exciting time!

We’ve summarized the best highlights of the video for our community members to read.

Enjoy the complete discussion here:

Achievements at Launch & Looking Forward to Hybrid Finance (HyFi)

Dan kicked off the discussion, giving attendees a glimpse of the DeFi parachain’s accomplishments. Currently, at launch, Acala has achieved:

$600 million + TVL
Over 200k token holders
3M+ fintech clients to onboard thanks to current.com.

He also mentioned Acala’s collaboration with Current and its impact on Web3’s potential within the fintech industry. Through its association, Acala is ushering in a new category in finance known as Hybrid Finance (HyFi). HyFi combines the world of fintech and traditional banking with crypto and Web3.

Acala’s HyFi vision is demonstrated in this video:

Full-Stack Vision

Bette delved into HyFi and its significance to Acala while reminding Web3 advocates of our goal: to realize a domain-specific, application-specific blockchain. Sharing an illustration of Apple and its ecosystem model, Bette explained why a full-stack vertical integration is the future of blockchain.

Acala’s setup allows it to upgrade as the market demands, ensuring consistent and convenient service. Using full-stack vertical integration, Acala will reach people beyond crypto.

Acala Treasury

After explaining our full-stack vision, Bette discussed the Acala treasury. She explained the unique arrangement of the Acala Treasury and how it’s unique compared to other platforms. Most projects would convert their crowdfunding raised into dollars to build their platforms and fund the team’s budget. However, Acala has donated all DOT proceeds from the “Build Acala: Ready the Treasury” event to its on-chain treasury, a protocol-owned reserve governed by ACA holders with the purpose of enabling long-term network self-sustainability and growth.

Bette revealed how this contribution to our treasury gives ACA token owners stewardship over the treasury. While dwelling on ACA tokens, Bette pointed out that ACA has a fixed supply. Therefore, owning ACA tokens gives community members possession of part of the treasury and network.

Acala’s Launch Approach

Here’s a summary of Dan’s comments on Acala’s launch approach:

Dependence on Polkadot. Some services under Acala rely on Polkadot timelines, for instance, cross-chain messaging.
Polkadot governance moves slow. Updates on Kusama are 4x faster than Polkadot. Greater consideration is required when planning Polkadot updates.
Flexible timelines. Development timelines are dynamic. Acala cannot provide exact launch dates or pre-announcements.
Acala and Polkadot prioritize enterprise-grade security.

Concerning its launch roadmap, Acala enabled token transfer as of January 25, 2022. ACA tokens are now transferable to supported wallets and exchanges.

Ethereum Virtual Machine+ (EVM+)

Bette provided a comprehensive explanation of the current state of EVM options in the market. She describes most EVMs as old wine in a new bottle, illuminating how they stifle blockchain innovation. For example, when using the old EVM, builders and communities may find that cross-Polkadot parachain liquidity and substrate features are inaccessible via Metamask.

Some of the advantages possible with the Acala EVM+ include:

Pay gas fees with any coin (of the transacting coins)
Support customizable fee schedule.
Support for both Ethereum-standard and Substrate-native tokens seamlessly.
Customizable DeFi features at the chain level including, on-chain keepers, prioritized oracle feeds, and upgradability to new features.
Support both Metamask and Polkadot.

To better understand Acala’s EVM+, Dan illustrated how the team has built an adapter layer to connect the EVM with Substrate functionality at the blockchain level. Acala’s EVM+ combines EVM and Substrate, allowing EVM to work, and simultaneously enjoy the innovation of Substrate.

ACA Staking & Growing the Acala Treasury, AquaDAO

Bette divulged further details on Acala’s token model, clarifying the reasoning behind using a fixed supply compared to an inflationary model. While we can grow the Acala treasury with an inflationary model; however, the ownership stake of network owners would be diluted.

Her explanation gave insight into how our users benefit from a fixed supply. It encourages collective network growth and yield and likens our network to a sovereign nation by growing its wealth.

Concerning AquaDAO, we learn from Bette its purpose and association with ACA. AquaDAO champions protocol-controlled policies. Through AquaDAO, we can:

Grow Acala treasury and Aqua’s reserves
Give ACA holders access to the growth and yield
Encourage governance engagement with delegated and vested voting
New treasury funding model to empower ACA

Acala Vs. Karura

Towards the end of the session, Bette answered a common question highlighted by many community members: the difference between Acala and Karura.

Bette explains how Acala and Karura cannot exist without each other. Karura is where we test all new technology. While Acala hosts technology proven on Karura, both platforms enjoy a symbiotic relationship crucial to Acala’s overall growth and development.

Dan and Bette delivered an excellent update detailing the progress achieved so far. They certainly share the community’s excitement for the future as the team plans, executes, and achieves further milestones.

About Acala

Acala is an Ethereum-compatible smart contract platform optimized for DeFi and scaling DApps to Polkadot. The blockchain has built-in DeFi protocols for application developers to leverage, including a decentralized stablecoin (Acala Dollar — aUSD), a trustless staking derivative (liquid DOT — LDOT), and a decentralized exchange.