Alchemy Integrates Astar Network to Support Web3 Developers in Polkadot Ecosystem

Web3 developer platform Alchemy will now support Astar Network, a parachain of the Polkadot network, the company said Tuesday.

The integration is intended to allow developers to build Web3 projects on the Astar network through Alchemy’s application programming interface (API), product manager Mike Garland told CoinDesk.

Astar allows developers to interact with the Polkadot ecosystem, enabling building on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and utilization of the Polkadot blockchain’s cross-consensus messaging (XCM).

Developers will also be able to partake in decentralized application (dapp) staking, a feature native to Astar. This allows users to vote on their favorite Astar dapps with its native token, ASTR, in order to earn rewards. This will encourage developers to build out apps on the protocol, said Garland.

Alchemy is enthusiastic about supporting Astar because of its “built-in” support for developers seeking to build on the chain, Garland said. “Jumping in and helping bootstrap that ecosystem with our product as well I think is going to go a long way.”

“Rather than spinning up nodes or worrying about memory constraints, this will allow [developers] the capability to really focus on the real world problems they're solving with the dapps they’re building,” Astar CMO Valeria Kholostenko told CoinDesk.

Alchemy, headed by CEO Nikil Viswanathan, has worked to expand its Web3 developer platform in the past year. Following a $200 million equity raise in February, the company expanded to the Solana ecosystem in June, and two weeks later announced a $25 million grant initiative for Web3 startups.