Polkadot parachains spike after the launch of a $250M aUSD stablecoin fund

Crypto prices have been exploring new lows for weeks and currently it's unclear what it will take to reverse the trend. Despite the downtrend, cryptocurrencies within the Polkadot ecosystem began to rally on May 24 and have managed to maintain gains ranging from 10% to 25%, a possible sign that certain sub-sectors of the market are on the verge of a breakout.

Here’s a look at three Polkadot ecosystem protocols that have seen their token prices trend higher in recent days.

Acala launches a $250 million aUSD ecosystem fund

Acala (ACA) is the leading decentralized finance (DeF) platform on the Polkadot network, primarily due to the launch of aUSD, the first native stablecoin in the Polkadot ecosystem.

Following the collapse of Terra's LUNA and TerraUSD (UST), traders were searching for "safer" stablecoin options.

On March 23, ACA rallied after the project announced the launch of a $250 million ‘aUSD Ecosystem Fund’ that aims to support early-stage startups planning to build strong stablecoin use cases on any Polkadot or Kusama parachain.

Acala, nine parachain teams, and a group of venture funds have launched the $250 million 'aUSD Ecosystem Fund' ️

The fund is seeking early-stage projects from any @Polkadot or @KusamaNetwork parachain with strong $aUSD stablecoin use cases https://t.co/OJ2V47ZUrypic.twitter.com/NDgLg2bG8N

— Acala (@AcalaNetwork) March 23, 2022

Acala also announced the launch of a kickoff rewards program that has set aside 1 million ACA tokens as rewards for LCDOT/DOT, LCDOT/aUSD, ACA/aUSD and aUSD/LDOT liquidity providers.

Following the aUSD ecosystem fund announcement, the price of ACA spiked 31% from a low of $0.364 on May 23 to a daily high of $0.478 on May 24.

Astar rallies after revealing a partnership with Microsoft

The Astar (ASTR) network is a smart contract hub for the Polkadot community that supports Ethereum (ETH), WebAssembly and other layer-two solutions like ZK-rollups.

Since the Polkadot relay chain doesn't offer Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) support, Astar was created to become a multi-chain smart contract platform capable of supporting multiple blockchains and virtual machines so that they can integrate with the Polkadot ecosystem.

On May 24 it was revealed that AstridDAO, an Astar-based protocol responsible for minting the collateralized BAI stablecoin, had signed a partnership with Microsoft to become part of Microsoft for Startups, an initiative “which removes traditional barriers to building a company with exclusive access to technology, coaching, marketing, and support."

Hello Astridians!

PARTNERSHIP ANNOUNCEMENT @Microsoft welcomes AstridDAO to @msft4startups program to Accelerate Growth of Decentralized Money Market and Stablecoin $BAI

Details below https://t.co/r9YO7E4NaSpic.twitter.com/J26pbrwCTU

— AstridDAO - No.1 native stablecoin on Astar (@AstridDAO) May 24, 2022

If successful, the partnership should accelerate AstridDAO’s go-to-market speed and maximize its market influence. It also includes up to $350,000 worth of benefits through Github Enterprise, Microsoft Teams, and Azure credits.

Following the partnership announcement, the price of ASTR spiked 61% from $0.055 to a daily high of $0.0888.

Related: Polkadot vs. Ethereum: Two equal chances to dominate the Web3 world

Uniswap v3 to deploy on Moonbeam

Moonbeam (GLMR) is an Ethereum-compatible smart contract parachain on Polkadot that streamlines the use of Ethereum developer tools to build or redeploy Solidity projects in a Substrate-based environment.

Interoperability with the Ethereum network is a highly sought-after capability since a majority of decentralized applications currently operate on Ethereum along with a majority of the value in decentralized finance.

The benefit of EVM interoperability was demonstrated with the May 24 announcement that a proposal to deploy Uniswap v3 on the Moonbeam network passed, meaning that the top decentralized exchange in the crypto ecosystem will soon be accessible to Moonbeam users.

Congratulations to everyone at @GnosisChain and @MoonbeamNetwork!

The proposals have passed and v3 will be deployed on both chains

— Uniswap Labs (@Uniswap) May 23, 2022

Following the announcement, the price of GLMR climbed 29% from a low of $1.15 on May 23 to a daily high at $1.48 on May 24 as its 24-hour trading volume increased 106% to $75.3 million.

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