One of Polkadot’s unique features is the interoperability of its ecosystem of blockchains and parachains with each other. Among these parachains is Moonbeam, which stands out from traditional sidechains by offering full compatibility with Ethereum. Integrating the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), it enables the smooth deployment of Solidity smart contracts and regular Ethereum transactions on the Moonbeam network.

Essentially, Moonbeam acts as a smart contract platform for cross-chain connected applications, allowing decentralized applications (dApps) to access users, assets, and services across various chains outside the Polkadot network. Moonbeam is the first ever EVM-compatible smart contract protocol on Polkadot. Developers using it have the flexibility to deploy projects natively or combine functionalities from multiple specialized chains. They get to utilize familiar Ethereum tools like MetaMask, Hardhat, and Truffle, while accessing existing interfaces to various assets and infrastructure services. This simplifies the development process and lets developers focus on building their applications rather than worrying about the underlying integrations.

So far, over 80 projects have been successfully deployed on Moonbeam. Notable ones include Evrloot, Stellaswap, and Moonwell. This success has significantly contributed to Moonbeam's growing value and ecosystem development, with the total value locked (TVL) reaching nearly $200 million within its first week on the Polkadot mainnet.

Features

Here’s what makes Moonbeam unique compared to other blockchains:

• Moonbeam Routed Liquidity (MRL) - MRL facilitates the transfer of crypto liquidity into and across the Polkadot ecosystem from other blockchain networks such as Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, or Avalanche. MRL allows any ERC-20 token created in the Moonbeam EVM to be moved within the Polkadot ecosystem via XCM. This interoperability enables users to route liquidity from any chain in any connected ecosystem through Moonbeam to any parachain on Polkadot with an XCM channel.
• Ethereum Compatibility - Moonbeam supports Solidity-based smart contracts, ecosystem tools, development tools, and Ethereum tokens via bridges. As such, it enables little to no changes when moving assets and data from Ethereum to Moonbeam, such as smart contracts, block explorers, front-end development libraries, wallets, and Ethereum-based tokens.
• On-chain Governance - Moonbeam's governance mechanism lets token holders take part in decision-making through a referendum process. Governance forums like the Moonbeam Community Forum and Polkassembly allow community members to make and refine proposals based on everyone’s input. Stake-weighted voting is used to decide on future changes to the protocol; the final decision depends on the number of staked tokens backing it up. Additionally, a Technical Committee reviews urgent security issues proposed by token holders, providing technical expertise to safeguard the network.
• Nimbus Consensus Framework - Polkadot uses a dual-function consensus model with two primary responsibilities: creating new blocks and confirming their finality. In this setup, parachains such as Moonbeam are dedicated to generating new blocks, improving the network's overall efficiency and flexibility.

Moonbeam Family

Moonriver, launched on Kusama in June 2021, is Moonbeam’s sister network. It shares nearly identical underlying technology and a common testnet named Moonrock.

Moonriver provides a faster and quicker to update but less secure alternative to Moonbeam. It is more experimental in nature, in contrast with Moonbeam which is known for its stability.

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Recent Developments

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In its March 20, 2023 update, Moonbeam introduced a dynamic fee mechanism on Moonriver, alongside improvements in staking and voting through proxy accounts. Moonbase Alpha is also testing a new format for XC-20s, aimed at simplifying the transfer process of ERC-20 tokens within the Polkadot ecosystem. This format is currently pending approval by the community for integration into Moonriver and Moonbeam governance.

In its Runtime 2401 upgrade last July 21, 2023, added three key updates:

• A precompiled smart contract for general message passing (GMP), enabling inter-parachain connectivity
• XCM to EVM functionality, allowing developers to initiate state changes on Moonbeam’s EVM from other Polkadot parachains
• OpenGov, a revamped governance process empowering token holders to actively participate in decision-making.

In Runtime 2700 last February 6, 2024, the adoption of Polkadot SDK version 1.3.0, enabled features such as multi-asset support for treasury management and streamlined cross-chain asset transfers. Additionally, the implementation of asynchronous backing in Moonbeam's testnet, Moonbase Alpha, laid the groundwork for faster block times. It reduced block intervals from 12 seconds to potentially just 6 seconds, increasing throughput and supporting applications requiring swift confirmation times like trading and payments. Runtime 2700 also introduced MBIP-5, enabling sustainable block storage growth by limiting storage per block. This aligns with Ethereum standards and improves integration for Solidity developers on Moonbeam.

All these features and developments make Moonbeam a powerful platform for creating innovative and interconnected applications. Through continuous upgrades and enhancements, Moonbeam enhances both user and developer experiences in its quest to become the foremost smart contract platform within the Polkadot ecosystem.

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