Astar Network, the smart contract platform for multichain, today announces the launch of its Cross-Virtual Machine (XVM) functionality on the public testnet Shibuya. It gives projects building on Astar Network, a Layer-1 blockchain, seamless interoperability between different smart contract environments such as the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and WebAssembly (WASM). 

XVM is a custom pallet and a set of interfaces that allow a smart contract in one virtual machine to communicate with another as if they are in the same environment. The XVM testnet is capable of making bi-directional calls between EVM and WASM smart contracts. It is the first major product launch as part of Astar Network’s 2023 starmap.