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(Kitco News) - Astar Network, a layer-one smart contract blockchain platform in the Polkadot ecosystem, announced the start of its Astar 2.0 Vision rollout earlier this week as part of its mission to help drive the mainstream adoption of blockchain technology and Web3.

Astar 2.0 focuses on getting us ready to deliver web3 to billions and further decentralizing Astar, the company said in its announcement. 2.0 describes the future iteration of our network, as well as shows the direction were headed towards.

Kitco Crypto sat down with Astar Network founder Sota Watanabe at the Consensus Conference in April to learn more about the project and their plans for the future.

Astar has a global team of developers spread across 20 different countries, but Sota, who is Japanese, said the team is heavily focused on building out their presence in Japan.

We see a lot of opportunity in Japan," he said. "We have been working with Toyota, Sony, and other agencies to develop their use cases. The Japanese government made Web3 a national strategy, and I think almost all people think Astar is the leading project in Japan, so I would like the make the most of the opportunity.

Sota specifically highlighted the platform's work with Sony, which is the largest company Astar has collaborated with and which he believes has a promising future in Web3. They have music, movies, gaming, even car bunking," he said. "So I would like to onboard Sony to Web3 through Astar.

Astar and Sony have already begun to collaborate on multiple projects, and Sota is looking to deepen the relationship between the two in the months ahead.

We started an incubation program with Sony and are incubating 19 different projects right now. They are going to be launched in the coming months, he said.

According to the Astar website, the incubation period for the collaboration with Sony runs from mid-March to June 18, and the Demo Day is scheduled to take place on June 18.

Demo Day will be held in June at Sony Group Corporation Headquarters in Tokyo during Japan Blockchain, the website says. About 200 people, including companies and investors participating in the incubation program, will attend.

Sota said that they received more than 200 applications for the incubation program in less than two weeks.

Astar and Polkadot

Astar is currently the leading parachain in the Polkadot ecosystem, Sota said.

Parachains can serve a variety of functions, such as serving as a smart contract platform, DeFi application, decentralized identity provider, or as a non-fungible token platform. Thanks to the underlying structure that the Polkadot relay chain provides, parachains can specialize in offering one service.

The main limitation of the Polkadot relay chain, which is considered a layer 0 blockchain, is that it does not support smart contracts. This is what motivated Sota to develop Astar to bring smart contract capabilities to Polkadot.

We have two types of smart contracts, Ethereum native smart contracts and protocol native smart contracts, Sota said. Astar is the only platform that provides not only Ethereum smart contracts but also native smart contracts.

Astar has also added a bridge to the Cosmos network, he said. We would like to connect our blockchain to other ecosystems as well. Since Polkadot is not strictly Ethereum compatible, we are also compatible with networks like Near and Solana. Recently, the top NFT marketplace on Near [Paras] elected to deploy on Astar.

We would like to attract big projects from Ethereum, Solana, and so on, he said. And another narrative is that we are backed by Japan, so we would like to see a Japanese CBDC launched on Astar so that we can help create a lot of real use cases together."

Astar and the Japanese government

Sota said the Japanese government is being quite aggressive in the space because they see blockchain as an opportunity.

Japan used to be number one in terms of cars, electric goods, let's say 30 years ago. A lot of Japanese companies ranked toward the top in terms of valuation, he said. But right now, the biggest company in Japan is Toyota, which ranks near 50th.

We completely missed Web2, he said. We do not have a Tencent or Alibaba. We dont have a Line as they do in Korea. So we completely missed the opportunity. And thats why our economy is not growing. Web3 is the new opportunity, and they would like to invest a lot of money and resources on Web3 because if they miss it, we are probably going to see another 20 losing years.

Sota noted that while Japanese companies were good at developing products for Web2 platforms, the real money is in the platforms, which they did not succeed in building.

Platforms create a lot of money and value, so Web3 is going to be the same. If we miss building a platform, all we will have is small projects on top of other platforms, he said.

This is why he created Astar to be a layer-one smart contract platform, and why the Japanese government is endorsing the platform, even if they cannot officially push people to adopt it.

Blockchain interoperability and future plans

On the topic of why Sota selected Polkadot as the base chain for Astar, Sota said its ability to connect with other blockchain networks was a major factor.

In the future, I think blockchains should be connected, so we would like to enter the Ethereum ecosystem and the Solana ecosystem and so on," he said. "But, if we have a strong presence in Polkadot and are recognized as a leading chain in the Polkadot ecosystem, that will make it easier to work with other networks. This is one of our main objectives.

Other future plans for Astar include the possible launch of a stablecoin, but that process is still at the exploration stage.

Im actually speaking with a big bank to issue a stablecoin right now, Sota said. We can issue a stablecoin by ourselves, but history shows us this is pretty dangerous. So working with big banks to launch a stablecoin on Astar makes more sense than issuing a stablecoin by ourselves.

Crypto and Web3 are all about trustless infrastructure, but business is all about trust," he added. "Right now I see a big shift from trustless to trust, so working with big companies makes sense for mass adoption."

Sota also shared his perspective on the changing landscape of Web3, which he said was previously only for tech people but has started to move towards mass adoption.

The average person doesnt care which blockchain to use, he said. Just like the internet. When I interact with the internet, I dont care which server I use. Blockchain should be the same. While which specific blockchain to use matters more to the long-term adopters, general people, like your grandparents, will not care about which blockchain to use.

The main selling point of Astar is that it supports smart contracts, so it is capable of hosting protocols in the top sectors of the blockchain ecosystem. Sota said the network is already supporting a variety of projects from multiple sectors including the metaverse, artificial intelligence, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

One of the most exciting things for me is NFTs because [Japan] historically has strong IP, such as manga, anime, and so on, he said.

Sota added that he thinks this is one of the best opportunities for Japan to leverage in terms of the mass adoption of blockchain technology.

His ultimate goal with Astar is to make the network completely vertical and provide all the various components that other platforms provide individually. This includes indexing, node management, oracle capabilities, and wallet service, among others.

He would also like to see greater integration between Web3 and real assets. We should connect existing Web3 to real assets, Web2, Web1, and even the finance market," he said. "This is what we would like to do, and we are on the right track.

When it comes to central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and a digital yen, Sota said that he would personally like to have the CBDC hosted on Astar first, and then see it expanded to other blockchain networks, but based on his understanding from conversations with the Japanese government, there is no timeline for the release of a digital yen and it has not yet been decided whether they will use blockchain.

As an entrepreneur, I would like to make something people want to use, something that can actually change reality, he said. Right now, Web3 does not change our reality much, so I would like to change the current status quo and make something people actually use.

People are using the internet, people are using ChatGPT, he said. I would like to make something similar within the next two years. The crypto market will be coming back, and I think the next bull market will be the biggest one. So we should not miss it. But making a great product takes time.

In the coming months, Sota said he will continue to work on making Astar the go-to-market chain for Japan, and then expand its presence in Asia and eventually to the U.S., once the regulatory landscape becomes more settled. I would like to make Astar a star, he said.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

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