ChainCatcher news, Web3 infrastructure Startale Group announced the establishment of a new investment department, Startale Ventures, which will primarily invest in the Sony L2 network Soneium and Astar ecosystem projects.In addition to providing funding, it will also offer comprehensive support including marketing, business development, and strategic planning, and will be able to leverage cloud infrastructure such as RPC nodes and account abstraction provided by Startale Cloud Services to enhance Web3 development efficiency.

ChainCatcher news, Startale CEO Sota Watanabe posted on X: "Since the announcement of the transition from Astar zkEVM to Soneium, one of the most common questions is about the future direction of Astar and the role of the ASTR token. This transition represents the first phase of Astar Evolution. The second phase has already been determined by the Astar Foundation, and we are entering the execution phase."Currently, the team is considering several potential development directions and hopes to discuss these with the community, including ASTR as an ecosystem asset; ASTR as a DeFi asset; ASTR as currency in consumer applications with AA; and ASTR for enhancing the security of Soneium infrastructure, etc.

ChainCatcher news, Astar Network founder Sota Watanabe posted on X: "By 2026, Sony Group will create a unified ID for all Sony-related products and services. It would be very interesting if we could build a DID on top of the blockchain, as it would become the interface connecting Web3 and Web2."

ChainCatcher message, Astar Network announced that it has partnered with Binance to launch a staking mechanism. When users stake through the Binance Simple Earn program, the exchange will directly stake Astar Network's native token ASTR into the Astar community treasury in Astar dApp staking. This means that the dApp staking rewards generated during the staking process will increase proportionally to the amount staked on Binance.

ChainCatcher message, the multi-chain smart contract network Astar Network posted on platform X that, after a community vote, 350 million ASTR have been successfully burned.

ChainCatcher news, Startale Labs CEO and Astar Network founder Sota Watanabe tweeted that he is developing L1 and L2, and has extensive experience with both. It could be L1 or L2. The top priority is the Astar community and the value of ASTR.

ChainCatcher news, Astar Network officially announced on social media that the NFT market Sonova has officially launched, which is tailored for collectors and professional traders.

ChainCatcher news, Startale Labs CEO and Astar Network founder Sota Watanabe posted on social media that Astar Evolution Phase 1 will be launched within 2 months.

ChainCatcher news, Astar Network announced on social media that the Astar zkEVM mainnet will undergo maintenance from June 27th, 21:00 to 23:00. During this period, the Astar zkEVM mainnet will be unavailable.The team is conducting this maintenance to migrate the network to new infrastructure and ensure a successful migration. Last week, the same migration for the Astar zkEVM testnet (zKyoto) was successfully completed. Once the maintenance is finished, the zkEVM mainnet will be promptly back online.

ChainCatcher news, Astar Network has initiated the proposal "Astar Foundation to Burn 5% of ASTR Genesis Allocation." The proposal states that the Astar Foundation is considering taking a significant step to burn its parachain auction reserves, which were originally reserved during the network's genesis deployment, totaling 350 million ASTR tokens (approximately 38 million USD). This significant move is driven by the upcoming upgrade of the Polkadot network, Agile Coretime, which will gradually phase out the crowdloan concept. Burning the reserves can benefit ASTR holders by reducing the total supply of staked tokens, thereby increasing rewards for stakers. The proposal is open for community discussion, and voting will take place three weeks after its release.

ChainCatcher news, Astar Network founder Sota Watanabe posted on the X platform stating that the team has updated the protocol portal design and displayed the actual ASTR inflation rate. It was previously around 10%, but now it is 2.6%.

ChainCatcher news, according to official sources, Astar Network has announced the launch of the Web3 developer platform Astar Studio, providing a "developer console" solution to simplify the development process.

ChainCatcher news, according to TheBlock, Astar Network founder Watanabe stated that the upcoming months of developing a new public chain in collaboration with Sony is a "very important" phase for the company.It is reported that Sony has applied for a patent for its "super fungible token" concept, which is used for transferring NFTs on the blockchain within the gaming ecosystem. However, Watanabe believes that the blockchain being developed will not focus solely on games or NFTs. When asked how Japan's new stablecoin regulations would affect the Astar project, Watanabe mentioned that the company is in dialogue with major banks and corporations but declined to provide further details.

ChainCatcher message, Astar Network posted on platform X that Astar zkEVM has now integrated with Layerswap. It is reported that Layerswap is a cross-chain asset transfer solution.

ChainCatcher news, the smart contract platform Astar Network announced the launch of Astar zkEVM, which is a Layer2 chain fully integrated with Polygon's blockchain aggregation layer AggLayer.

ChainCatcher news, the Polkadot ecosystem smart contract platform Astar Network announced on X platform that dApp Staking V3 is now live on Shiden and will be launched on the Astar mainnet next week.

ChainCatcher message, the Polkadot ecosystem smart contract platform Astar Network stated that it has received multiple reports regarding scams impersonating the official Astar Network website. Astar Network is currently not conducting any airdrops.