Developing an NFT Marketplace on Astar Network

Astar is a Polkadot parachain that runs EVM smart contracts (and has supported Wasm contracts written in ink!), with a distinctive dApp Staking system that pays builders from network inflation. For an NFT marketplace, that means familiar Solidity tooling, a possible extra revenue line, and access to Polkadot's cross-chain messaging, in exchange for a smaller collector base than the largest NFT chains.

What Astar is today

Astar launched as Plasm Network and rebranded to Astar before winning a Polkadot parachain slot in 2021. Its parachain, Astar Network, uses Polkadot's shared security, meaning Polkadot's validators finalize its blocks. Its native token is ASTR.

The Astar ecosystem has also expanded beyond Polkadot. The team is closely involved with Soneium, Sony Block Solutions Labs' Ethereum Layer 2 built on the OP Stack, which launched on mainnet in January 2025, and an earlier Astar zkEVM built on Polygon's CDK was wound down in favor of that direction. When someone says "build on Astar" in 2026, clarify whether they mean the Polkadot parachain or the Ethereum-side ecosystem, because the tooling, users and liquidity differ. The official Astar documentation is the best place to confirm current network status.

Why build an NFT marketplace on Astar

• EVM compatibility: ERC-721, ERC-1155 and marketplace contracts written in Solidity deploy with the usual tools (Foundry, Hardhat), and MetaMask-style wallets work.
• dApp Staking: ASTR holders can stake on specific dApps, and registered dApps receive a share of block rewards based on that stake. A marketplace with an engaged community can earn protocol rewards on top of trading fees, though the amounts depend on staking participation and governance-set parameters.
• Polkadot interoperability: XCM (cross-consensus messaging) lets assets and messages move between parachains without a third-party bridge, useful if your NFTs or payment tokens live elsewhere in the Polkadot ecosystem.
• Low fees and fast finality suited to game items and frequent trades.

Honest trade-offs

• Smaller NFT market: collectors and liquidity are far deeper on Ethereum, its Layer 2s and Solana. Expect to bring your own community.
• Fewer off-the-shelf services: check that your chosen NFT API, indexer, fiat on-ramp and embedded wallet vendors support Astar before committing.
• Two account formats: Polkadot-native (SS58) and EVM (H160) addresses coexist. Astar provides mapping between them, but your UI must handle users arriving from either side.
• Wasm contracts: ink! contracts on Astar were an option for Rust developers, but the ecosystem around them is small; most production NFT work uses the EVM side. Confirm the current support status before choosing Wasm.

Marketplace architecture on Astar

Build steps

1. Decide the target: Astar parachain (Polkadot-native users, XCM) or Soneium and Ethereum L2 users. This page assumes the parachain.
2. Write and test contracts on Shibuya, Astar's testnet, using standard EVM tooling.
3. Set up indexing and confirm RPC capacity with a provider that supports Astar.
4. Build the marketplace frontend with support for both EVM and Substrate wallets if you target Polkadot users.
5. Register the marketplace for dApp Staking and plan community campaigns to attract stakers.
6. Audit contracts and launch with a curated set of collections.

The marketplace logic itself is the same as on any EVM chain; see the Ethereum NFT marketplace guide for order protocols and royalties. For the Polkadot side of the stack, read the Polkadot development guide and, if you want parachain-to-parachain trading, the cross-chain NFT marketplace guide.

Cost and timeline

As a reasoned estimate, an EVM marketplace on Astar is similar in effort to one on any EVM chain: three to five months for four or five engineers for an MVP. Supporting Substrate wallets and XCM transfers adds several weeks, and specialist Polkadot experience is worth paying for there.

Frequently asked questions