Imbue To Integrate Acala’s aUSD As Default Stablecoin For Crowdfunding

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ImbueNetwork

4 min readApr 18, 2022

Hey Imbuers! Some huge news today.

Since we began our journey to decentralize crowdfunding, we’ve sought to be one of the most community-driven projects in the whole blockchain ecosystem of blockchain. One critical piece of strategy we’ve discussed in the community is which currencies would be the best options for Project Initiators to receive their funding.

Through internal discussions and overwhelming feedback from the community, we found that funding in stablecoins would be more valuable to Initiators and Contributors alike.

In order to fulfill this initiative, Imbue has partnered with Acala in integrating their Substrate-native stablecoin for Polkadot and Kusama — aUSD — to our Network.

What Is aUSD?

For those who are new to the Polkadot space, aUSD is a decentralized stablecoin backed by cross-chain assets, serving as the native stablecoin for the Kusama and Polkadot ecosystem. aUSD is designed to maintain a peg relative to the US Dollar, allowing users to transact, trade, and facilitate services using aUSD while shielding users from price volatility customary to the crypto asset economy.

As the primary routing asset of the DotSama ecosystem aUSD unlocks yield and liquidity for users, while proving to be a censorship-resistant medium of exchange. aUSD is the central stablecoin for Polkadot and Kusama, allowing minting through multi-currency over collateralized collateralized debt positions.

How Does This Help Imbue?

One bottleneck we saw to the mass adoption of decentralized crowdfunding is that crypto assets are highly volatile. A Project Initiator may receive the designated amount of funding in a given asset like $ETH, but anything can happen:

The market may dump.
Swap or transfer fees may substantially erode capital.

While these two problems are the most obvious, we found that a lack of funding options pegged to the USD could lead to other significant issues in the long term. However, Imbue’s partnership with Acala and integration of aUSD solves this myriad of potential blockers to mass adoption. From a framework perspective, we want Imbue to be a place where contribution and fulfillment of milestones is as certain as possible.

To give a specific use-case for crowdfunding in aUSD, let’s imagine that a recording artist wants to gather his/her community around an NFT drop for a new secret single. Aside from current staff, fulfilling this initiative will require hiring a couple smart contract developers. These specialized developers are are often prohibitively expensive.

Because the amount of capital raised can easily fluctuate in volatile assets, the artist (or their manager) may run into a problem where they have to invest out of pocket. Or perhaps a worse outcome, additional funding would be required to compensate for the lost value.

Let’s change the scenario. Perhaps the recording artist is Taylor Swift — no problem with raising sufficient capital. However, she probably does not have direct contacts in the blockchain industry. In fact, without guidance, she may not even know that she needs a specialized developer for this initiative. Her problem is of human capital.

Enter the Imbue tendering system.

She can easily advertise a job for a smart contract developer in our community, lay out her deliverables, set her timelines, and fund the project in aUSD. All of these innovations are made possible by the integration of Acala’s collateralized stablecoin into the Network

If you are a team interested in building a project that drives yield or utility of the aUSD stablecoin within the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystem, you can apply for funding from the $250M aUSD Ecosystem Fund.

Where This Takes Imbue

aUSD’s integration into the Imbue Network is a significant development to our progress and the community. Funding and Tendering in stablecoins opens up a far wider door for folks that are seeking fulfillment of their ideas and objectives. Our partnership with Acala creates a far lower barrier to entry for blockchain enthusiasts and retail investors alike to come into the community and take part.

Within the next month, we will have a public TestNet ready for you. And following the aUSD integration, our MVP launch is shaping up to be a milestone moment in our roadmap.

To stay updated on our progress, take a look at our public board. To contribute to the decentralization of crowdfunding and get closer to our project, join our Telegram and Discord communities.

About Acala Network

Acala is a decentralized finance network powering the aUSD ecosystem. The core product, Acala USD (aUSD), is a decentralized, multi-collateral, crypto-backed stablecoin serving as the native stablecoin of the Polkadot ecosystem. 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, and the EVM+, a hybrid EVM offering fully Ethereum-compatible development environment plus full compatibility with Substrate.

Contact Acala Network

About Imbue Network

Imbue Network is a decentralised crowdfunding DAO built on top of the Polkadot blockchain platform. It is an idea incubator open to the entire world that allows anyone, from any walk of life and for any kind of endeavour, to submit and vote on Ideas worth Funding from the communities that believe in them the most.

Contact Imbue Network