Polkastarter (POLS) is a cryptocurrency and decentralized exchange (DEX) built for cross-China token pools and auctions, enabling projects to raise capital on a decentralized and interoperable environment based on Polkadot^[1][2].

On December 15, 2020, Polkastarter 1.0 Beta went live on Ethereum Ethereum Mainnet. Polkastarter 2.0 is set to launch on Polkadot in Q1 of 2021^[3].

Overview

Polkastarter is a permissionless decentralized exchange (DEX) built for cross-chain token pools and auctions, enabling projects to raise capital on a decentralized and interoperable environment based on Polkadot^[4].

Polkastarter's roadmap for 2020 and 2021 includes two phases of development.

Phase 1

Phase 1 will start with the launch of a minimum viable product (MVP) on the Ethereum network. The goal of this phase is to test the Swap and token sale dynamics, gather user feedback, and prepare a robust infrastructure that can be migrated to Polkadot.

Q4 2020 - Phase 1 (Minimum Viable Product):

• Polkastarter 1.0 (Ethereum Beta)
• Permissionless listings
• Liquidity Mining
• Key token swap information, including smart contract, swap ratio
• Fixed swap public and private pools
• Private pools with password ideal for OTC and private-sales
• Anti-scam features like smart contract verification
• High slippage price alerts
• Pool swap page with features like max pool amount
• Max investment per user limits
• English, Chinese and Korean Language

Phase 2

Phase 2 will see the full launch of the working product on the Polkadot environment, enabling Polkadot projects to raise funds in DOT or any other Polkadot-based tokens that the project chooses to raise. The team's vision is for Polkastarter to offer cross-chain pools and token sales, by taking advantage of Polkadot's bridges such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether.

Q1 2021:

• Polkastarter 2.0
• Multi-chain token pools (Ethereum and Polkadot)
• Staking for Governance
• Staking for Pool Rewards
• Community-powered featured project voting
• Full KYC integration

Q2, Q3 and Q4 2021:

• Polkastarter 3.0
• Cross-chain token swaps
• Dynamic ratio swaps

Polkastarter MVP Core Features

The goal for the MVP is to be a fully working fixed swap platform for ERC20 token pools, creating a marketplace that links pool creators and liquidity providers. Pool creators will be able to create and launch fixed token swaps in a permissionless environment. Liquidity providers will be able to earn and transact in these new tokens. Community incentives such as liquidity mining will be live from day one to bootstrap network effects.

Fixed Swap Pools

These will be fixed swap pools, in which two or more parties exchange a fixed amount of tokens for a predetermined price. In this initial prototype, pool creators will be able to enter pool details like token contract address, name of the pool, limit per address, type of pool access (public, private, whitelist), and, finally, token price.

Liquidity Mining

To incentivize participation in the daily token pools, the Polkastarter team is launching a liquidity mining program concurrent with MVP launch on Ethereum. In the manner of DeFi projects like Synthetix and Balancer), this program will distribute a fixed amount of POLS tokens daily. All liquidity providers will receive POLS from this as-yet-undetermined fixed amount on a pro-rata basis. For example, if there is 1000 ETH in fixed swap volume for 24 hours, a user that contributed 100 ETH of that volume will receive 10% of the total daily liquidity rewards. Liquidity providers can claim their POLS token rewards after 24 hours and will have 7 days to claim their reward tokens on the Polkastarter dashboard. Unclaimed tokens will be sent back to the rewards pool for later distribution.

Staking for Pool Access

For high-demand pools, access can be limited to the top liquidity and network contributors. Password protection and whitelisting are potential features that could provide additional limits. However, to best align the interests of the entire Polkastarter community, the POLS token can be used as a coordinating mechanism. For instance, if community members want access to certain token pools, they must stake POLS tokens. For projects that use the Polkastarter platform, the goal is to craft diverse token holder communities loyal to the project and invested in its long-term success.

Private Pools And Whitelisting

One of the Polkastarter use cases is private fundraising and closed over-the-counter (OTC) deals. To enable these, the team will launch with features like password-protected pools and address whitelisting for pool participation.

Permissionless Listings

Though certain Polkastarter features may be enhanced for POLS token holders, anyone will be able to use the protocol in order to create and launch fixed swap token pools. Counter-measures to prevent bot-based and malicious pools will also be integrated.

Other Features

Other features include anti-scam features preventing users from buying the wrong token. These include smart contract verification, smart contract information, token import alert, and high slippage alerts. All of these mechanisms work together to make users aware that they might be buying at an unfair price. In addition, the Polkastarter platform can be viewed in either dark or light mode.

Polkastarter 1.0

On December 15, 2020, Polkastarter 1.0 Beta went live on the Ethereum mainnet. 6 pools for SpiderDAO, MahaDAO, and Royale were made available. Half of these pools are for public participants, and the other half exclusive to $POLS holders. Additionally, the team created a Polkastarter Token ($POLS) pool at around 3-5% discount, so they could test the Atomic Pools feature with early access participants. On Polkastarter a user will be able to participate in Standard Pool - pools where a user buys tokens and then has to wait for the pool time to finish to receive their purchased tokens, and Atomic Pools - pools where a user gets their tokens immediately after purchase^[5].

Polkastarter decided to run their security audits with two different companies: Red4Sec and Hacken. In total, they ran 4 separate audits: Fixed Swap smart contract audit with Red4Sec, Polkastarter JS audit with Red4Sec, Polkastarter web security audit with Red4Sec, and Fixed Swap smart contract audit with Hacken.

POLS Token

Pols token holders will be able to vote on product features, token utility, types of auctions and decide which projects get to be featured by Polkastarter. Transaction fees will be paid in POLS^[6].

POLS has a total supply of 100 million tokens, with 42.5 million sold. The tokens went for $0.025. Upon listing on Uniswap, Polkastarter will have an initial market cap of $893,750 and a fully diluted market capitalization of $5 million. Team and advisor tokens will be locked for at least one year and seed/private round investors will also be subject to a vesting schedule between 3 to 8 months.

Usage of Funds

45% of the funds will be used to support the developer team. Marketing actions such as partnerships, awareness, and go-to-market strategy will account for 20% of the total funds raised. Legal and Accountancy will represent 5% of the total funds raised. 30% of funds will be used to provide liquidity to Uniswap and other exchanges.

Staking for Pool Rewards

Token pools on Polkastarter will incur a fixed fee, paid by the pool creator. If a pool creator receives 1000 DOT worth of a token and the fee is fixed at 1%, 10 DOT will be deducted from his purchase and added to the staking reward pool. Staking rewards will also be distributed in 24-hour cycles. If a user holds 2% of the total staked POLS during that 24-hour cycle, that user will get the equivalent of 2% of all the staking rewards for that same period. If during that period Polkastarter generated 10,000 DOT, that user will get 200 DOT.

Polkastarter network users are only eligible for staking after providing liquidity to the Polkastarter pools. Contributors can lose their staking status if they stop providing liquidity to the network.

Staking for Pool Access

For high-demand pools, access can be limited to the top liquidity and network contributors. Password protection and whitelisting are potential features that could provide additional limits. However, to best align the interests of the entire Polkastarter community, the POLS token can be used as a coordinating mechanism. For instance, if community members want access to certain token pools, they must stake POLS tokens. Pool creators can activate POLS staking to limit pool access exclusively to POLS holders. The incentive for this type of behavior from the pool creator is a reduced fee on the total swapped funds.

Staking for Governance

The Polkastarter governance framework aims to build a solid and sustainable protocol for development and usage. POLS holders will be able to vote for ecosystem initiatives, new features development, liquidity rewards distribution specs, and other applications. POLS holders need to stake POLS in order to be able to vote and to submit proposals. Proposals will be first discussed off-chain on the Polkastarter governance platform. The idea of this pre-voting mechanism is to promote proposal discussion before on-chain submission. Once the proposal is ready to be submitted, there will be an on-chain vote. Every winning proposal is then reviewed and applied by the Polkastarter development and management team.

Team

Founders

• Daniel Stockhaus - Co-founder and CEO
• Tiago Martins - Co-founder and CTO

Advisors

• John Patrick Mullin - Co-Founder & Council Member, Mantra DAO
• Matthew Dibb
  • CEO and Founder of Astronaut and Picolo Research

Partners

• Moonbeam Network: By utilizing Moonbeam, Polkastarter’s Ethereum-facing logic and smart contracts can be ported over to the Polkadot Network. This allows saving a lot of time and developer resources. Polkastarter's applications for token swaps, sales, and DEXs are able to perform cross-chain transactions and function more efficiently and in a more user-friendly way. Leveraging the Moonbeam tech stack allows Polkastarter to facilitate cross-chain swaps and token fundraising using both Ethereum and Polkadot-based value assets^[8].
• Shyft Network: Integration with Shyft allows address whitelisting and making Know Your Customer (KYC) an optional feature on regulatory-compliant token sales and liquidity pools, should the token issuer and seller wish to do so^[7].
• Covalent: The partnership between Polkastarter and Covalent will bring more transparency and anti-scam measures to token sales facilitated on the Polkastarter Ecosystem^[9].
• Orion Protocol: Polkastarter integrated with Orion Protocol to use Orion’s Liquidity Boost Plugin, enriching Polkastarter’s DEX with cross-exchange liquidity to provide automated liquidity to token swaps and pools. With this integration, Polkastarter guarantees constant activity and liquidity on several ERC-20 token pools^[10].
• Decentralized Information Asset: With DIA’s technology, pools on Polkastarter will have built-in alert systems that warn users if current prices are too high, or if a certain trade will incur significant slippage^[11].

Investors

• Signum Capital
• NGC Ventures
• VYSYN
• Strategic Round Capital
• Astronaut Capital
• Moonrock Capital
• Vendetta Capital
• Kyros Ventures

In December 2020, the Polkastarter team announced that Digital Finance Group (DFG), one of the largest blockchain venture capital firms in Asia, invested in Polkastarter. Digital Finance Group invested an undisclosed amount to purchase $POLS tokens at current prices. In order to safeguard their investment and signal their long-term commitment to the Polkastarter project, DFG agreed to a significant lock-up period for vesting their tokens.