Recently, Astar activated the asynchronous support function module on the mainnet, marking another major technological upgrade in the Astar ecosystem, which will greatly improve the performance, responsiveness and scalability of the ecosystem. This change represents an important step for Astar infrastructure, which can promote a faster and more efficient block production process without changing the core economic operation logic of the on-chain ecosystem.
Asynchronous support was first introduced in Polkadot's relay chain as a revolutionary technology upgrade process. It fundamentally reconstructs the production and verification methods of parachain blocks, significantly improving network throughput and scalability, thereby increasing the transaction processing capacity (TPS) of parachains by several times; at the same time, network efficiency and resource utilization are further improved, and the developer and user experience are significantly optimized, so that a more streamlined and scalable operating ecosystem can be successfully realized.
What significant changes will occur in the Astar ecosystem after activating asynchronous support ?
First of all, the most important change is that the block production time is reduced from 12 seconds to about 6 seconds, which greatly halves the time required to generate a new block, makes the network more responsive, and reduces the final completion time. In addition, it is worth mentioning that the upgrade of asynchronous support has brought about an improvement in eco-friendliness, with ASTR emissions per block reduced by about 50% and the number of blocks doubled. To maintain the current inflation level, the emissions per block are reduced by half, and the total annual issuance can remain constant.
Secondly, since all durations in Astar are still calculated in blocks rather than seconds, governance lock cycles, DApp staking cycles, and other time-based mechanisms continue to operate as expected, so there is no obvious distinction or change to the related mechanisms of DApp staking or governance locks.
How async support works on Astar
Asynchronous support fundamentally improves the block generation and verification logic by introducing technical methods to support the operation of parachain blocks. In fact, instead of waiting for a block to be fully supported before making the next block, multiple blocks can now be prepared in advance, allowing more support and inclusion block operation systems to move forward in the same relay, which greatly reduces latency and improves operational efficiency.
In this new operating model, a Parablock is generated every 6 seconds, with a maximum execution time of 2 seconds, which is four times the previous rate.
This supports the ability to handle more complex transactions and larger data loads. By allowing multiple unincluded parameter blocks to coexist, the network becomes more resilient and can use block space more efficiently; collators can achieve block swaps earlier, validators can start backups earlier, and can support continuous operation of blocks faster, while ensuring security and reliability of operation.
This will make Astar a more scalable and efficient ecosystem, with transaction throughput doubling and latency further reduced, reducing obstacles to the overall ecological operation, improving the ability of flexible scheduling, and bringing more significant technical assistance and operational support to users and developers.
💡 For more in-depth technical explanations, please refer to the official materials:
https://wiki.polkadot.network/learn/learn-async-backing/#asynchronous-backing
What can developers experience after Astar asynchronous support is activated?
1. Faster block production
Developers can achieve more efficient confirmation and more sensitive DApp interaction process in shorter block production time
2. Larger throughput
The upgrade allows multiple parachain blocks to be in different verification stages at the same time, and the launch of asynchronous support significantly increases the number of transactions and messages that the ecosystem can process in parallel.
3. Improve DApps user experience
After the asynchronous support upgrade, it will support the upgrade of real-time applications such as payment, trading platforms, social tools and on-chain games, which can bring a smoother application experience; developers can design more interactive and low-latency technical products to further optimize the user experience.
The activation of asynchronous support can bring Astar to a whole new level of performance, which enables it to further scale to support higher user volumes, more complex DApps, emerging technology use cases in games and DeFi. It does not interrupt the staking logic, governance period or token inflation time, which is good news for users who are interested in Astar.
More importantly, for developers, this change introduces a faster technical rhythm to advance the block production process; although the duration based on the block remains consistent, the off-chain ecosystem with an assumed interval of 12 seconds may need to be constantly updated. Scripts, backend services or monitoring tools need to undergo a corresponding detailed review process.
The upgrade has been tested on Shiden and verified internally. The governance vote to activate asynchronous support on the Astar ecosystem has been passed, encouraging developers to test and build on an asynchronous ecosystem. This upgrade is not only an improvement in the performance of the ecosystem technology, but also a continuous incentive for the future of the Astar ecosystem. Now let us work together to unleash its potential and application space.
We believe that the upgrade of asynchronous support in the Astar ecosystem will also open the door for Polkadot to host large-scale, high-performance next-generation decentralized applications, and continue to empower technological innovation in subsequent projects, helping Polkadot realize its Web3 vision - that is, to become a truly scalable, interoperable and efficient multi-chain ecosystem!
