Astar is launching its first zkEVM with Gelato’s zkRollup as a Service (zkRaaS) platform

Gelato Team

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Sep 28, 2023

TL;DR

Astar zkEVM is the first project being powered by Gelato's zkRollup as a Service (zkRaaS) Platform built on top of Polygon’s zkEVM framework. Supercharged with Gelato’s native Account Abstraction and middleware services, Astar zkEVM empowers enterprises to embrace Web3 at scale, providing developers with proven tooling and users with a familiar web2-like experience.

Gelato’s zkRaaS platform enables:

High TPS & Low Fees
Ethereum’s Security
Familiar Developer Experience via EVM compatibility
Native Account Abstraction for Web2-like UX
Built-in smart contract automation & access to off-chain data

With Astar’s cross-layer technology stack, Japanese enterprises are primed to harness the advantages of multiple virtual machines, layers, and consensus protocols to scale Web3.

Why Astar chose Gelato’s zkRaaS

Making blockchain infrastructure interoperable, functional, and feature-rich is challenging. Choosing modular components of execution, data availability, and settlement layers is only the first step. Once those are set, a wide range of middleware and additional services are required.

Gelato’s zkRollup as a Service (zkRaaS) platform provides Astar’s new L2 with reliable hosting, monitoring, and operation, while natively leveraging Gelato’s suite of Web3 services and 3rd party infrastructure such as block explorers, indexers, and oracles — all on a single platform, in a single click, operated by Gelato’s decentralized network of infra node operators.

“Gelato’s out-of-box zkRaaS solution accelerates our development and ensures Astar's success in the Web3 space. The expertise of the team has been instrumental in optimizing our processes and resources, saving us the equivalent of three full-time senior engineers dedicated solely to blockchain infra.”
— Maarten Henskens, Head of Foundation at Astar Network

The Road to Mainnet

Astar’s new L2 will serve as a portal for Japanese enterprises looking to leverage blockchain technology. Partnering with Gelato zkRaaS and Polygon, Astar is positioned to provide a resilient and reliable infrastructure for its growing ecosystem, attracting new audiences and accelerating the mass adoption of Web3.

Astar’s zkEVM is set to launch on testnet in Q4, allowing Astar to tap into Ethereum's growing developer ecosystem.

About Astar

Astar Network is the gateway for projects across enterprises, entertainment, and gaming in Japan and beyond, driving global adoption and delivering Web3 to billions. It leverages a cross-virtual machine powered by Polygon and Polkadot to offer customizable blockchain solutions that accelerate Web3 adoption.

With zk-powered Ethereum L2 scaling (zkEVM), EVM, Wasm, and a cutting-edge ecosystem, Astar delivers robust, secure, and interoperable Web3 technology. Astar zkEVM is the new Layer-2 solution to scale a Web3 experience on Ethereum with zero-knowledge (ZK) technology.

Astar Network adds an EVM-equivalent environment that is seamlessly compatible with existing smart contracts, developer tools, and wallets on Ethereum.

About Gelato

Gelato is Web3’s decentralized backend, empowering builders to create augmented smart contracts that are automated, gasless, and off-chain aware on all major EVM-compatible blockchains including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism, zkSync, and many more. Over 400 Web3 projects have relied on Gelato for years to power millions of transactions across DeFi, NFTs, and gaming.

Explore Gelato services:

Gelato zkRaaS: Deploy tailor-made ZK L2 chains in one click with native Account Abstraction and all Gelato middleware baked in.
Web3 Functions: Connect smart contracts to off-chain data & computation by running decentralized cloud functions.
Automate: Automate smart contracts by executing transactions automatically in a reliable, developer-friendly & decentralized manner.
Relay: Enable reliable, robust, and scalable gasless transactions via a simple-to-use API.
Account Abstraction SDK: Built with Safe, combining Gelato's industry-best gasless transaction infrastructure with the most secure smart contract wallet.