Astar zkEVM & zKyoto Future
As announced during Astar Evolution Phase 1, Astar zkEVM will transition to Soneium L2 following its launch next year. Once this transition is complete, Astar zkEVM will be deprecated.
In the same direction, we would like to begin deprecating Astar zKyoto at the end of this month to reduce internal costs and where we see this as a transition towards using Soneium Minato as our layer 2 testnet. The Astar Foundation intends to reallocate this budget toward executing our value management strategy.
Our analysis of Astar zKyoto shows that the network is predominantly used by bots interacting with random smart contracts: https://zkyoto.explorer.startale.com/
At present, there is an average of just five active accounts on the network, and only one contract has been deployed in the past month. This minimal usage does not justify the ongoing costs of maintaining zKyoto as an underutilized testnet.
For developers seeking an L2 environment to create and test new dApps and products, we recommend using Soneium Minato, the L2 testnet of Soneium: https://soneium-minato.blockscout.com/
It’s important to note that we will not deprecate the Astar zkEVM mainnet without executing our transition strategy . This ensures liquidity and assets are smoothly transferred to the Astar ecosystem, whether to Astar or to Soneium.The Astar Foundation is not pursuing further development of Astar zkEVM. Deprecating its testnet at the end of this month is part of the plan to sunset Astar zkEVM next year.
Best regards
Maarten Henskens
Head of Astar Foundation