The leading blockchain in Japan, Astar Network, has now been merged into the Fireblocks digital asset management platform, expanding the company’s safe services for institutional investors. With the new connection, more than 650 banks and financial institutions can now use Fireblocks to trade, exchange, and lend digital assets on Astar and access its growing DeFi ecosystem.
Due to its support for the well-liked Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) environment and the addition of WebAssembly (WASM), which makes it a multi-chain platform supporting interoperable apps, Astar Network has quickly gained popularity in Japan.
Fireblocks, a company renowned for its dedication to security, has been successful in getting the Cryptocurrency Certification Consortium (C4) to certify its digital asset infrastructure system, making it the first service provider to do so. With the help of its multi-party computation (MPC) technology, traditional financial clients like BNY Mellon, ANZ Bank, and NAB as well as Japanese trading platforms like CoinTrade have become fans.
Fireblocks’ Stephen Richardson, Managing Director of Financial Markets and Head of APAC, reacted on the integration by stating that the company has always been committed to promoting institutional adoption in the digital assets sector. Banks, exchanges, OTCs, and hedge funds can now easily access Astar’s assets because to our extremely secure network and wallet infrastructure built on MPC.
At a special ceremony held in honour of the integration during WebX in Tokyo, almost 200 guests—including executives from major corporations, the founders of web3—were present. The delegates learned a lot about how web3 technology is used in the corporate world and the expanding role that businesses are playing in web3, especially in Japan, where the government is actively looking for ways to use web3 technology.
The CEO of the Astar Foundation, Maarten Henskens, highlighted the benefits of the integration by saying, “We’re looking forward to leveraging this integration to enhance adoption while giving institutions looking to build on Astar a secure and robust way to safeguard their digital assets.”