Singapore, Singapore | November 28, 2022 01:36 PM Eastern Standard Time

 , the smart contract platform for multichain, today announces the launch of Swanky, an all-in-one tool that gives developers everything they need to build WebAssembly (WASM) smart contracts easily. Astar Network’s Head of Ecosystem Development Maarten Henskens and Swanky Product Lead Sasa Pul unveiled it at the Sub0 Polkadot Developer Conference in Lisbon on Nov.28th.

Swanky is to WASM what Truffle Suite is to Ethereum. It combines various tools in the WASM ecosystem into a single interface to help developers build the next generation of smart contracts. The all-in-one toolkit has two parts:

• Swanky CLI: A tool to write and compile smart contracts, setup and run integration tests, and handle account management. It gives developers access to a growing number of project templates, including the smart contract and front-end dApp code. Instead of setting up the environment and writing smart contracts from scratch, developers can quickly jump into building and deploying their projects.
• Swanky Node: Swanky Node is optimized for local development – a simple Substrate-based blockchain that enables pallet-contracts and has instant-seal enabled, so there’s no waiting for block time. It is highly flexible and can be configured to run in different states (persistent or non-persistent), access pallets of Substrate-based dApp development, and other features.

Astar Network supports both the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and WebAssembly (WASM) smart contract environments. Having two VMs simultaneously and making them interactive is a key success factor for an emerging Layer-1 blockchain. Though Ethereum brought us the Web3 revolution with the introduction of smart contracts, it cannot build the innovative future of blockchain alone. The industry is transitioning from EVM to WASM to explore and create new interoperable dApps.

Maarten Henskens, Head of Ecosystem Development at Astar Network, said, “With WASM smart contract usage and building still at a very early stage, tooling and documentation are essential to bootstrap the WASM developer activity. Swanky makes it incredibly easy for developers, especially those coming from Web2 to Web3, to start exploring this new environment.”

Today, Web3 is prohibitive for many Web2 developers as Web2 languages aren’t composable into Solidity, the programming language of Ethereum. This means that developers must learn Solidity before they can build EVM-compatible dApps. With WebAssembly (WASM), developers can quickly transition from a Web2 language to Web3 language, which enables them to spend more time building core features in their dApps rather than learning specialized languages such as Solidity.

WASM increases performance since it is closer to machinery language. Moreover, WASM development is already supported by top-tier companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla, and can be used with popular programming languages such as C/C++, GO, TypeScript and RUST, which is common among Web2 developers.

The newly-launched Swanky toolkit will allow developers to write, compile, deploy, and test WASM smart contracts with ease. It will help expand the WASM smart contract developer community and accelerate the pace of innovation in the Web3 ecosystem.  

About Astar Network

Astar Network supports the building of dApps with EVM and WASM smart contracts and offers developers true interoperability, with cross-consensus messaging (XCM) and cross-virtual machine (XVM). We are made by developers and for developers. Astar’s unique Build2Earn model empowers developers to get paid through a dApp staking mechanism for the code they write and dApps they build.

Astar’s vibrant ecosystem has become Polkadot’s leading Parachain globally, supported by all major exchanges and tier 1 VCs. Astar offers the flexibility of all Ethereum and WASM toolings for developers to start building their dApps.

For media queries, please contact: Maarten Henskens, ork

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Astar Network

Maarten Henskens

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