Acala EVM+ Now Live on Mainnet, Bringing Full EVM+Substrate Compatibility to Polkadot’s DeFi Appchain

Any Solidity-based DApp can now seamlessly deploy to the Acala EVM+ in a fully Ethereum compatible environment with tooling like MetaMask, Truffle, and Waffle

Dan Reecer
Acala
5 min readFeb 7, 2023

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We are excited to announce the mainnet launch of the Acala EVM+, bringing DApp developers the opportunity to launch Ethereum-compatible DApps on Acala’s DeFi appchain and Polkadot’s leading liquidity hub. The Acala EVM+ provides a development environment analogous to Ethereum and a fully Ethereum-compatible experience for DeFi users (MetaMask), while still getting the full power, speed, and customizability of Polkadot’s modular blockchain framework, Substrate.

Any DApp team can now deploy their EVM-based smart contracts onto the Acala EVM+ with minimal changes while using the same tooling they utilize in other Ethereum environments (MetaMask, Truffle, Waffle, etc.).

In a hurry? Dive into the EVM+ documentation now for deployment information and tutorials, or read on…

Why custom-build the Acala EVM+?

The Acala engineering spent several months custom-building an EVM rather than using the standard EVM used across nearly all EVM-compatible chains. Why? Well, just like Ethereum can do things Bitcoin will never be able to do, which subsequently inspired many new innovations, Substrate and Polkadot are categorically different from Ethereum in a way that will empower many new, chain-level innovations outside of the EVM sandbox. We are firm believers in the power of Substrate and built the Acala EVM+ to also optimize for Substrate’s full potential and longevity, rather than simply redeploying Ethereum on Polkadot and inheriting all the same problems Polkadot was built to solve.

The environment combines the best of both worlds between EVM+Substrate. Hence the name, EVM+.

Scale your user base and TVL with Acala EVM+

Expand your TVL on Polkadot with minimal code changes

For DeFi teams, the Acala EVM+ now provides a seamless transition onto Polkadot for access to an expected billions in liquidity for Polkadot-native collaterals such as DOT and DOT derivatives (e.g. LDOT or Tapio’s tDOT synthetic) from Acala, native decentralized stablecoin Acala Dollar (aUSD), and natively issued USDC and USDT. Acala also has access to liquidity from Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Avalanche, and other top ecosystems via Wormhole (recently launched on Acala). This allows EVM-compatible DApp platforms to expand their collateral and product offerings to their existing user base, while onboarding hundreds of thousands of new Polkadot-native users.

Provide seamless access to new assets for Ethereum users

DApp teams can now grant their existing EVM-based users access to new assets and markets within the same interface and experience. For example, users will be able to simply switch to the “Acala market”, while still using their MetaMask, just like switching between Ethereum and other networks today. This new Acala market will allow access to the Polkadot DeFi ecosystem.

Customizable and Composable DeFi hub leveraging Substrate for improved UX

Acala’s EVM+ does not sacrifice the power of Substrate in order to provide developers a fully Ethereum-compatible development environment, composable with all Acala-based DeFi DApps. EVM+ can tap into any of Acala’s core DeFi primitives built into the Acala chain, including liquid DOT staking, the Acala Swap AMM-style DEX, or the aUSD stablecoin and credit system.

EVM+ also allows you to access DeFi customizations the Acala team made at the chain level, such as ‘Bring your own gas’ (gas fees paid in any token), auto-liquidation without keepers, Oracle quality of service customization to guarantee inclusion in a block, and on-chain automatic scheduling.

Virtually any chain-level upgrades developers need for their DApp can be added with Substrate over time, leveraging Acala’s forkless upgrade process via Polkadot’s SDK Substrate, so the chain can evolve along with your requirements.

Integrate with Institutional DeFi

Acala’s appchain provides backend infrastructure for traditional finance that is trusted by institutions like Coinbase, Figment, Kraken, and Current.com. Developers deploying on Acala can tap into institutional liquidity with products like LsDOT coming from Liquid Collective (Coinbase, Figment, Kraken, etc) or can integrate with Fintech firms like Current.com who are leveraging Acala’s chain as financial infrastructure that connects the worlds of Web2 and Web3.

More information on these integrations below:

Acala EVM+ Audits & Security

Acala’s blockchain is audited by SR Labs on an ongoing basis, and the chain has gone through several audits in the past with top auditing firms including SR Labs, Slow Mist, and Trail of Bits. The Acala EVM+ has also been audited by SR Labs and has been deployed on Acala’s experimental ‘canary’ network Karura since June 2022 (7 months of live testing and experimentation).

Integrate with Wormhole Assets

With the recent launch of Wormhole on Acala, any Acala EVM+ developers can now integrate with Wormhole xAssets on their Acala-based DApps or become cross-chain DApps leveraging the bridge. Learn more below:

Start Building 👩‍💻👨‍💻

EVM+ Documentation:

  1. Learn more about deployment and configuration details on our dedicated EVM+ documentation
  2. Learn more about the technical details of the Acala EVM+ in our protocol wiki.
  3. Find our EVM+ tutorials here. You can also find an EVM+ YouTube demo below:

Chat with us: Get in touch with our team if you’re looking to scale your Ethereum DeFi project to Polkadot with Acala.

About Acala

Acala is an appchain powering Web3 finance. Acala’s Ethereum-compatible blockchain has built-in DeFi protocols for application developers to leverage, including a trustless staking derivative (liquid DOT — LDOT), a decentralized exchange, the over-collateralized aUSD stablecoin, and the EVM+, a hybrid EVM offering fully Ethereum-compatible development environment plus full compatibility with Substrate. Karura is Acala’s sister parachain to serve the Kusama ecosystem and shares the same codebase as Acala.

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Acala
Acala

Published in Acala

Acala is the decentralized financial hub of Polkadot that makes it fast and easy to use or build financial applications, improving trading efficiency and saving valuable time. The platform offers a suite of DeFi primitives including a stablecoin, DEX, and staking deritatives.

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