Polkadot moved toward its first EVM compatible smart contract protocol with the launch of Moonbeam (GLMR)

Moonbeam (GLMR) could be a top contender in 2022 if Moonbeam’s planned interoperability with the Ethereum Network hits investors and developers.

Moonbeam (GLMR) launch brings EVM interoperability closer to Polkadot

Cross-chain compatibility with the Ethereum (ETH) network has become a necessary component for any layer one protocol that wants to remain relevant as most projects and funds are locked in smart contracts are found on the top-ranked smart contract platform.

2/ Moonbeam has completed its launch process to @Polkadot. During the last launch phase, the ? super user key (Sudo) was removed, ⛓️↔️⛓️ EVM & ?​ balance transfers were enabled, and the active set of collators was increased to 48.

Launch process info ?https://t.co/qmerLzoI5i

— Moonbeam Network (@MoonbeamNetwork) January 11, 2022

After years of development and promise of interoperability, the Polkadot network moved towards its first Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible smart contract protocol with Moonbeam (GLMR) launch. The platform is designed to make it easy for you to use Ethereum developer tools to build or redeploy Solidity projects in a Substratum-based environment.

GLMR/USD 4-hour chart | Source: TradingView

Its price ranged from a low of $8.40 on January 11 to a high of $15.97 on January 14, GLMR is currently consolidating near $10.45.

Three reasons why GLMR could receive increasing attention from investors are the official launch of Moonbeam on Polkadot with cross-chain support for Ethereum, its integration with many bridging protocols providing access to the broader crypto community, and the launch of Moonbeam-based projects is attracting value to the network.

The most important development providing impetus for Moonbeam is the official launch of the project on the Polkadot network, which will bring cross-chain interoperability with the Ethereum network to a shard multi-chain protocol.

After becoming the first project to secure one of the Polkadot parachain auction slots in early November, Moonbeam became the first fully operational parachain on the network. This allows more than 80 projects already built on Moonbeam to be deployed.

The full launch began on December 17 and took three weeks to gradually roll out the functionality and EVM activation and balance transfers. GLMR holders can now add the network to their MetaMask wallet and transfer assets within the Moonbeam ecosystem or across other EVM compatible networks.

Another factor helping GLMR establish itself in the crypto ecosystem is its integration into cross-chain bridge-equipped protocols that allow Moonbeam network assets to migrate to other protocols and networks.

Some of the more popular bridges that have integrated Moonbeam include cBridge from Celer and the Multichain swap protocol, which announced support for ten assets bridged between Moonbeam and Ethereum.

The third factor that got the Moonbeam network up and running was interest from developers who launched their projects on the network. This has helped attract users and assets to the newly launched protocol.

These include the Solarflare auto-marketing protocol, the StellSwap DEX, and the ZenLink cross-chain DEX protocol.

Due to multiple protocol launches on Moonbeam, the total value locked (TVL) on the network reached nearly $200 million in the first week of live streaming on the Polkadot mainnet. The top protocol on Moonbeam in terms of TVL is StellaSwap with $89.3 million, followed by BeamSwap with $46.4 million.