Polkadex Partners with Acala to Integrate aUSD

aUSD will become the default stablecoin of the Polkadex ecosystem

3 min readMay 19, 2022

Polkadex has partnered with Acala, the decentralized finance network powering aUSD. The first parachain slot winner, Acala, will work together with the sixteenth parachain slot winner, Polkadex, to make aUSD the default stablecoin of the Polkadex ecosystem.

Acala — Powering DeFi and the aUSD stablecoin on Polkadot

Acala won the first-ever Polkadot parachain auction with over 32 million DOT contributed to its Crowdloan and now powers aUSD, the default stablecoin of the Dotsama ecosystems. Acala is a decentralized finance platform behind the aUSD ecosystem and a hub for liquidity and DeFi applications in the Polkadot ecosystem.

aUSD is the default routing asset for Polkadot and Kusama

aUSD is a decentralized, multi-collateralized stablecoin backed by reserve assets including DOT, KSM, ACA, KAR, BTC, and ETH. Essentially, aUSD is designed to maintain a peg to the US Dollar, which will allow its users to transact, trade, and facilitate services while being shielded from the price volatility customary to the crypto-economy. Watch here for a deep dive on aUSD’s mechanism and how it operates.

aUSD on Polkadex

Stablecoins are integral to the way cryptocurrency exchanges operate and aUSD will be equally as integral to Polkadex, and the Polkadot ecosystem as a whole. Thanks to Polkadot’s parachain-to-parachain communication enabled by XCM, aUSD is innately cross-chain, which means it can be transferred across chains to and from any Polkadot parachain, including Polkadex.

As a cross-chain stablecoin, aUSD could seamlessly go from your account on Acala to your Polkadex account (to be traded on Polkadex Orderbook), and back.

As the decentralized orderbook-based trading engine of Web3, Polkadex will integrate aUSD as the default stablecoin on Polkadex Orderbook and across the rest of the Polkadex product slate. Polkadex will drive utility for aUSD as it will be featured as the default stablecoin pair on Polkadex Orderbook, which will also leverage stablecoin to stablecoin pairs featuring aUSD. In other words, it won’t be long before we see a PDEX/aUSD pair on Polkadex, for example.

Future PDEX aUSD Collateralization

Since aUSD is a stablecoin collateralized by multiple assets, PDEX will soon be eligible to become collateral for aUSD minting. This will create new opportunities for PDEX holders while giving the PDEX token a huge utility boost.

Always better together

Partnering with Acala is a no-brainer for Polkadex as it enables future Polkadex users to access an over-collateralized, Polkadot-native stablecoin. In return, Acala’s aUSD will benefit from more liquidity from Polkadex Orderbook. This partnership is yet another example of how the Polkadot ecosystem impels collaboration between different projects and parachains. With the advent of parachain-to-parachain messaging technology via XCM, the Acala and Polkadex partnership is just one of endless collaboration possibilities which will create value for the Web3 space and cryptocurrency investors as a whole.

About Acala

Acala is a decentralized finance network powering the aUSD ecosystem. The core product, Acala USD (aUSD), is a decentralized, multi-collateral, crypto-backed stablecoin serving as the native stablecoin of the Polkadot ecosystem. Acala’s Ethereum-compatible blockchain has built-in DeFi protocols for application developers to leverage, including a trustless staking derivative (liquid DOT — LDOT), a decentralized exchange, and the EVM+, a hybrid EVM offering fully Ethereum-compatible development environment plus full compatibility with Substrate.

About Polkadex

Polkadex is a fully decentralized peer-to-peer orderbook-based cryptocurrency exchange for the DeFi ecosystem built on Substrate and designed to become the ultimate trading engine for Web3.