Acala
ACA
Evaluation Score
Overall rating on a scale of 0-10
Dimension Breakdown
AI Analysis
Comprehensive evaluation of the token
Acala (ACA) functions as a DeFi hub and Polkadot parachain. The project maintains solid engineering momentum, evidenced by active runtime releases (v2.31.0), polkadot-sdk and XCM integrations, and ongoing development on the Exodus Upgrade and JAM roadmap (scoring 7.5 in Active Development). However, these technical achievements are heavily overshadowed by fundamental weaknesses across adoption, tokenomics, and historical security. ACA suffers from a major loss of market traction, featuring sub-$1M market capitalization and minimal liquidity (scoring 2.5 in Market and Use Case). Community engagement is largely restricted to narrow on-chain governance rather than an active grassroots user base (scoring 3.5). Tokenomics (scoring 4.5) present ongoing dilution from Exodus emissions (100M ACA annually over six years) paired with significant insider allocations. Security and Team scores (3.0 and 4.5 respectively) reflect the catastrophic August 2022 misconfiguration and exploit of the flagship aUSD stablecoin pool, which led to aUSD's depeg and subsequent deprecation/conversion to aSEED. The weighted average across all six fully evaluated sections yields an overall score of 4.4/10.
Development Activity
Code updates and developer engagement
Community Support
Social media presence and community engagement
Tokenomics
Supply, distribution, and utility
Market & Use Case
Value proposition and competitive landscape
Team & Governance
Team background and project governance
Security & Audits
Security history and audit status
About Acala (ACA)
ACA is the native utility and governance token of the Acala Network, a decentralized finance (DeFi) hub operating as a parachain on the Polkadot network. The platform provides core DeFi infrastructure including a built-in automated market maker (AMM) decentralized exchange, liquid staking services, cross-chain bridging via Polkadot's Cross-Consensus Messaging (XCM), and EVM+ smart contract environments. Within the network, the ACA token is utilized for transaction fee payments, network governance voting, staking, and participation in protocol mechanisms.
The tokenomics of ACA feature a fixed maximum supply of 1.6 billion tokens, with approximately 40% to 50% allocated to insiders across various vesting schedules. Under the protocol's Exodus Upgrade initiated in October 2023, the network implemented an annual inflation schedule emitting 100 million ACA per year over a six-year period to support ongoing operations and ecosystem incentives. Active technical development continues on the protocol, including runtime updates, Asynchronous Backing implementations, and Join-Accumulate Machine (JAM) development.
Acala's history is marked by a major security incident in August 2022, when a liquidity pool misconfiguration and exploit compromised its infrastructure, exposing significant protocol liquidity. The incident resulted in the severe depegging and failure of Acala's flagship overcollateralized stablecoin, aUSD, which was subsequently deprecated and converted into aSEED. In addition to remediation efforts and governance proposals such as partial compensation for the Starlay exploit, the project has experienced constrained adoption, maintaining a market capitalization below $1 million and limited trading liquidity.