The Next Chapter: Astroport’s Migration to Neutron
Astroport — one of our industry’s leading cross-chain applications and the second-largest Automated Market Maker (AMM) in Cosmos with over $120M in liquidity — has completed its migration to Neutron 🎉
Migration Overview
- The Astral Assembly (i.e., Astroport’s governance and staking contracts) has moved from Terra to Neutron
- New TokenFactory versions of the ASTRO and xASTRO tokens have been issued on Neutron
- Current ASTRO has become ASTRO.cw20, and current xASTRO has become xASTRO.cw20
- Users who held ASTRO can convert 1:1 with the new ASTRO token on Neutron
- Governance votes on all Astroport deployments will settle on Neutron
- ASTRO staking will take place on Neutron (~$43M in TVL pre-migration)
- All system fees generated on the Astroport Hub and outposts will flow to xASTRO holders on Neutron
- Astroport will launch vxASTRO and a Curve-style ‘tributes’ marketplace on Neutron, enabling users to lock their xASTRO to receive vxASTRO and become eligible to vote on ASTRO emissions and collect paid ‘tributes’
This post will explore how the migration benefits both the NTRN and ASTRO communities, how to migrate and stake ASTRO on Neutron, and what to expect from Astroport in the coming months.
Synergies Between Astroport & Neutron
Astroport is a decentralized and open-source AMM operating on the Neutron, Osmosis, Terra, Injective, and Sei blockchains, enabling non-custodial liquidity and price discovery for any crypto asset. Astroport users can swap and provide liquidity for a myriad of Cosmos tokens and permissionlessly launch new liquidity pools using one of multiple pool types.
The initial proposal to establish Astroport’s Hub on Neutron was first introduced in May 2023 and was subsequently cemented with joint proposals on the governance forums of both Astroport and Neutron in September 2023. To align the NTRN and ASTRO communities, included as part of the dual proposals:
- The Astral Assembly donated 5% of the ASTRO supply to the Neutron DAO (to be held long-term, staked in the Astral Assembly, and used to direct incentives to key Neutron LPs following the release of vxASTRO and the ASTRO ‘tributes’ marketplace on Neutron, which we overview below)
- The Neutron DAO donated an equivalent amount of NTRN to the Astroport Protocol Foundation (to help fund Astroport’s migration and the release of vxASTRO and a the ‘tributes’ marketplace)
- The Astral Assembly granted The Neutron Foundation 1% of the ASTRO supply (to incentivize liquidity on key Astroport pools on Neutron)
- Off-chain agreements were formed between The Neutron Foundation and The Astroport Protocol Foundation: The Astroport Protocol Foundation covenants that any sales of its NTRN will be conducted OTC, and The Neutron Foundation covenants to provide liquidity incentives to one or more key Astroport pools and that any sales of its ASTRO will also be conducted OTC.
Economically, the relocation of Astroport’s Hub to Neutron presented prodigious value creation/capture opportunities for the ASTRO community. Leveraging Neutron’s advanced cross-chain smart contract capabilities alongside a burgeoning array of high-caliber DeFi applications such as Mars and Apollo, Astroport is well-positioned to increase protocol earnings and compose with other apps to expand its functionality. Moreover, in collaboration with Duality — a sophisticated liquidity primitive provider building on Neutron — Astroport is set to further its mission of democratizing and decentralizing liquidity provision, aggregating liquidity from expert, active market-makers, as well as decentralized, passive LP strategies, into a single venue.
As mentioned in one of our previous posts:
An Astroport integration with Duality is a massive win-win for the Neutron ecosystem. Liquidity deployed on Duality protects Neutron from liquidity fragmentation. It reduces the ecosystem’s reliance on complex, expensive order aggregation and routing. Astroport LPs, in turn, receive more order flow from the network effects of traders using Duality. Aggregated liquidity results in better execution for traders. The entire ecosystem benefits from more robust, decentralized liquidity.
Further, Astroport’s transition introduces additional advantages for the Neutron ecosystem and community, including:
- Increased transaction volume
- User & capital inflows
- The emergence of novel DeFi use cases
- Elevated appeal for launching new projects on Neutron
- An early lead in the upcoming ASTRO Wars
How to Migrate & Stake ASTRO on Neutron
Astroport has upgraded its governance tokens, ASTRO and xASTRO, from the legacy CW20 format to the new and improved TokenFactory standard. To maintain participation in governance and continue earning rewards, ASTRO and xASTRO holders must migrate and stake their tokens on Neutron. To do so, either follow the steps below or follow along in this walkthrough video.
Step 1: If you have xASTRO, unstake your tokens via the banner at the top of the screen or on the Governance page to receive ASTRO.cw20
Step 2: Swap your current ASTRO.cw20 for the new ASTRO token at a 1:1 ratio via the banner at the top of the screen or by navigating directly to the Astroport Swap page. Note that Osmosis users will need first to send their ASTRO.cw20 to Terra via the Astroport Bridge to execute the swap
Step 3: Send your ASTRO to Neutron via the Astroport Bridge
Step 4: Finally, ensure you’ve selected Neutron as your chain in the top right selector menu and stake your ASTRO tokens via the Governance page to receive xASTRO, participate in governance, and earn rewards
vxASTRO & The Temple
With the migration complete, Astroport contributors can focus on rolling out the highly anticipated vxASTRO and its accompanying ‘tributes’ marketplace on Neutron. Inspired by — but iterating on — Curve’s veCRV model, or vote-escrowed CRV, vxASTRO will allow users to lock their xASTRO tokens for a time period of their choosing in exchange for the right to determine the allocation of ASTRO emissions going to various pools during each epoch. On top of this, vxASTRO holders can earn ‘tributes’ from external parties who incentivize them on The Temple — Astroport’s soon-to-come tributes marketplace — to vote on certain pools. It’s worth noting that these tributes could end up being quite substantial.
From the Astroport Blog:
Votium, the vote buying marketplace for the Curve ecosystem, has facilitated at least $287m worth of vote incentives on the protocol, providing a substantial benefit for veCRV and vlCVX holders. And Velodrome’s own vote buying marketplace generates ~5.4x more yield for voters than trading fees ($25m in incentives for voters vs $4.6m in trading fees).
The introduction of vxASTRO and The Temple have the potential to:
- Align incentives between governance participants and LPs to maximize revenue for each party
- Enable participants to influence the allocation and distribution of token rewards within the ecosystem based on their long-term commitment and involvement
- Create a more efficient and decentralized system of allocating ASTRO emissions
- Encourage token lock-ups and active governance participation
Building Momentum
Astroport’s successful migration to Neutron marks an important milestone in our shared journey toward fostering a robust, permissionless, and decentralized financial ecosystem. Amplifying mutual capabilities and setting the stage for future growth, Neutron and Astroport’s collaboration exemplifies Neutron’s commitment to supporting the entrepreneurs and teams that aspire to build the next generation of Internet-native applications and infrastructure.
Stay tuned, frens — much more coming soon.
Additional Resources
Join the Neutron community and explore more of the ecosystem with these additional resources:
- Visit the Neutron website
- Follow Neutron on Twitter/X
- Join the Neutron Community on Telegram
- Join the Neutron Community on Discord
- Read more from the Neutron Blog
- Visit the Neutron governance forum
- Explore the Neutron Docs
