The followings are an interview with Sota, the founder of Astar Network, a leading multi-chain platform in the Polkadot ecosystem.
Would you quickly intro yourself? What do you do and why?
My name is Sota Watanabe, founder of Astar Network which I started building the network back in 2019.
Astar is the future of smart contracts platform for multichain.
I am a strong Web3 believer and I think all blockchains will be connected and interoperable just like the internet in 10 years.
Currently, the use cases and blockchain adoption are limited because of the isolated networks. We started making Astar to create a fundamental protocol to realize the true potential of web3.
How big is the Astar community now? Anything we should know about your community?
We have 20 developers and around 40 ambassadors all over the world. Because of the nature of DAO, our community is geologically decentralized and there are more than 20,000 people on Discord, Telegram, WeChat and other places.
We are running a program called the "Astar Ambassador program" (details here). By contributing to Astar Network, you will be able to earn ASTR, our token.
What did you learn from working on Astar Network? Any lesson you can share?
The balance between decentralization and centralization is important. Both approaches have different pros and cons. It is difficult to distinguish between the part of decision-making that needs to be done quickly while respecting the culture of the community and the part that requires decentralized decision-making.
Any advice on how to keep developers engaged?
Developers are, in many cases, the most important human resource for blockchain projects (or any software-driven projects).
But, they are not rewarded enough for their contributions. (e.g. Optimism, Etherscan, Metamask etc) Even worse, developers have to pay a lot in order to develop their products. (gas, equipments, etc)
Astar is a "build-to-earn" protocol. DApp Staking distributes basic income to developers on Astar Network. By building a product on Astar, developers can earn $ASTR tokens as basic income from block rewards based on their performance and decentralized voting.
This serves as a strong incentive for developers to choose and engage with Astar.
Awesome, what are the top reasons for people to join the Astar Network community?
Two things.
- Build to earn; people can earn tokens while making products or supporting products.
- Web3; Astar is going to be part of the fundamental protocol to realize Web3. Be part of the web3 revolution through Astar.
