The MoonRiver ParaChain and Crowdloan.

MoonRiver is the Kusama Implementation of MoonBeam, an Ethereum-compatible smart contract parachain built on Polkadot. MoonRiver aims to be an easy onramp for building smart contracts on Kusama and a testnet for what MoonBeam will eventually be on the Polkadot network.

Purpose of MoonRiver

The PolkaDot network is not live yet; however, Kusama is live and used as a ‘CanaryNet’ for PolkaDot and projects intended to go on PolkaDot eventually. In the same vein that Kusama is a testnet for PolkaDot, MoonRiver is a testnet for the future MoonBeam parachain, and all aspects of it are analogous to that future chain.

Even after the MoonBeam network is entirely up and running, MoonRiver will continue to act as a testnet for network upgrades and projects that aim to launch on MoonBeam eventually. Teams will be able to make sure everything is hashed out and operational before they eventually deploy to the main net.

Despite only being a testnet, MoonRiver is expected to have its own life, community, and value. This is intentional, as it means it will closely simulate the exact conditions MoonBeam will run in. However, projects may even find specific use cases exclusively on MoonRiver that do not require the same level of security found on the PolkaDot chain.

EVM Compatibility

One of MoonRiver and MoonBeam’s core aspects is their smooth compatibility with Ethereum projects or those on other Solidity-based chains. Since MoonBeam runs on solidity and an Ethereum Virtual Machine, the code for any project will be able to transition over easily. In addition, even the same address scheme is used as Ethereum. That means the owner of an address on Ethereum will also be the owner of an address on MoonBeam, so they will be able to use either network smoothly. The same goes for smart contracts, so a protocol could simply deploy their Ethereum project on MoonRiver from the same address for simplicity.

MoonRiver Crowdloan and Parachain Auction

There are only 100 slots for parachains on the Kusama network, and these slots are distributed through auctioned 6-week leases. The parachains that succeed in locking up the most KSM tokens win the auctions and are free to operate on the Kusama network.

The Moonbeam foundation will run a crowdloan in order to fund the MoonRiver network’s auction for a total of 48 weeks on the Kusama network. Loaned KSM tokens from supporters will be locked up in order for MoonRiver to participate, and participants will get MOVR tokens in addition to their locked tokens after the auction period is over.

30% of the supply of MoonRiver’s native MOVR token will be distributed to participants in the crowdloan. Upon launch, 30% of the distributed tokens will be available immediately, and 70% will be vested over the entirety of the 48-week lease.

Those wishing to contribute to the crowdloan to support MoonRiver will be able to do so through the MoonRiver crowdloan dApp, or through a selection of exchange partners.

Prospective participants can find more information here.