Diem will probably come this year. The Polkadot-based project Pontem now wants to build a test network for Diem-dApps – and is relying on Polkadot for this.
When Facebook presented its plans for an in-house crypto currency called Libra in June 2019, financial market regulators were frightened: inside out of their twilight sleep. Central bankers quickly painted the devils of a global corporate coin on the wall. Market supervisors fear that Diem could offer an alternative to national currencies for billions of users and thus ultimately threaten the financial market stability of individual countries.
After much regulatory back and forth, Facebook has for the time being said goodbye to its global stablecoin vision. Now you want to bake local rolls first. With the change of strategy came the rebranding of Libra in Diem and the Diem Association moved from the Swiss train back to the USA. According to insider sources, the launch of the Diem blockchain is planned for 2021.
Pontem wants to become Diem’s “Kusama”
There are many indications that Diem will not live a niche existence as a corporate coin. Rather, Diem could also find its way into the Orthodox crypto sector via various (detour) routes. For example, the Polkadot-based Pontem project has set itself the goal of developing a framework for decentralized applications (dApps) that will act as a public test network for Diem.
Based on Polkadot’s “Canary Network”, Pontem positions himself as “Kusama” on Facebook’s Diem. It uses a code base that is almost identical to Diem’s. Pontem enables interoperability between Facebook’s Diem and other crypto networks such as Ethereum or Bitcoin.
Seed funding round completed
The Pontem project announced on June 3 that the project has received $ 4.5 million in seed funding. Investors include, for example, Alameda Ventures, Animoca Brands, Morningstar Ventures, Genesis Block Ventures, Spartan Capital, Avalanche and CMS Holdings.
Pontem’s vision is to enable developers to build for Diem while leveraging Polkadot’s liquidity, data and user base. We’ve taken that vision very far through bootstrapping and our internal resources, but it’s time to take a leap forward and grow much faster. After the impressive success of the financing round, we are confident that our vision will become reality even faster than everyone expected,
Pontem co-founder Stas Oskin is enthusiastic about the financing round. The Pontem test network is according to one Medium contribution Already running, in the coming months Pontem will be launched as a Parathread (a special form of Parachain) from Polkadot. The Polkadot course is unimpressed by the development. At press time, DOT is trading at $ 24.67 and lost 12.35 percent in a 24-hour comparison.