Polkadot's Acala Launches $250 Million Fund for aUSD Ecosystem. Why Is This Crucial?

Acala Network, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform on Polkadot (DOT) and Kusama (KSM), is going to accelerate the adoption of its aUSD stablecoin pegged to the U.S. Dollar.

$250 million fund to fuel aUSD adoption

According to the official announcement shared by Acala Network, nine Polkadot (DOT) parachain teams and an alliance of world-leading Web3 VC firms launched a $250 million ecosystem fund.

Acala, nine parachain teams, and a group of venture funds have launched the $250 million 'aUSD Ecosystem Fund' ?️?

The fund is seeking early-stage projects from any @Polkadot or @KusamaNetwork parachain with strong $aUSD stablecoin use cases ?https://t.co/OJ2V47ZUry pic.twitter.com/NDgLg2bG8N

— Acala (@AcalaNetwork) March 23, 2022

This brand new initiative is set to supercharge the adoption of Acala USD (aUSD), the native stablecoin of Acala Network. Both Solidity- and Substrate-centric DeFis can apply for funding. Acala, Astar Network, Centrifuge, Efinity, HydraDX, Manta, Moonbeam, OriginTrail, Parallel and Zeitgeist parachains provide the technical basis for applicants' products.

The fund is backed by leading VCs, including the likes of Digital Currency Group, Alameda, Kraken Ventures, Arrington Capital, Pantera Capital, Jump Crypto, Hashed and so on.

Acala co-founder Bette Chen stressed that both Polkadot and Kusama are ready to on-board applicants of Acala Ecosystem Fund:

Building the native, decentralized stablecoin of Polkadot and Kusama has been at the heart of Acala's work for over three years. It is fantastic to see this group of parachains and funds coming together to grow the cross-chain ecosystem with aUSD as a foundational building block.

DEXes, DAOs, payments: More use cases for aUSD

Kanav Kariya, president of Jump Crypto, is excited about the mission of the new fund and its possible impact on Polkadot's ecosystem of Web3 products:

As Polkadot opens its doors and other parachains come online this year, Acala is poised to become the leading decentralized stablecoin and DeFi hub of the Polkadot ecosystem. At Jump, we look forward to working with, and investing in, teams driving innovation within the broader ecosystem.

Largely, the new initiative will be focused on fundraising for new products, its marketing progress and liquidity support for their ecosystems. Also, Acala's developers can support early-stage teams with their technical expertise.

Acala Dollar, or aUSD, can be integrated into decentralized crypto exchanges, decentralized autonomous organizations, assets management and payments solutions.

Last but not least, the ecosystem fund will support parachain slot bids submitted by promising teams.