To clarify the difference between Centrifuge and Altair and which role and use case it has in the ecosystem, we collected some of the most important questions (and answers):
What is the use case for Altair?
Altair is the experimental version of Centrifuge built on Kusama and plays an important part in testing and preparing future launches on the Centrifuge parachain. The current main use case of the native token AIR is to pay for transactions on the Altair network and vote in governance proposals of the Altair governance
Why does Altair matter and how does it impact Centrifuge?
In July 2022 we upgraded the Altair chain to support pools and a test pool to finance NFTs was set up. The pool launch had the purpose of a test run for the new Centrifuge pools which will focus on Real World Assets. It might look like the same (although improved) functionalities as in Tinlake but it’s another chain and newer technology
What happened to the Altair NFT-playground?
The NFT Playground, Altair’s first dApp, has gone live in April 2022. It allows users to create, view, and collect NFTs, and it serves as an essential building block to the future of Altair and Centrifuge Chain’s on-chain asset financing capabilities.
After pools on Altair went live last summer (see above) an artist can finance their NFT by taking out funds from the test pool. They can pay it back with the set interest rate before the maturity date
How does the future look like for the protocol?
Altair won the 46th Kusama auction and therefore secured another parachain slot on Kusama until July 16th 2023. It’s been very useful for the core contributors to rapidly build, iterate and much more as a base to create the Centrifuge runtime/application layer to finance Real World Assets on Centrifuge Chain. Most recently another set of 5 collators was proposed to enhance the current set to secure the parachain. For news and updates regarding Altair take a look into the Monthly summary of the ecosystem and Altair’s Twitter
Will Altair be used for financing assets?
Altair can be defined as a playground where developers and early adopters can experiment with. Most importantly, Altair is a testing ground for anything that plans to go live on Centrifuge chain. Future use cases and new features are heavily up to the community and everyone who has an idea can propose it in the governance forum for further discussion.
One example: if someone wants to create a product (e.g. an offramp for stablecoins directly to a bank account), which might be a useful product for the Centrifuge chain, this could be tested on Altair and allow real world users to interact with the protocol. The experimental feature can be used to ensure it is safe for users and large funds to be moved