Introducing Agoric network, the enterprise-grade DeFi and Smart Contracts blockchain built on Cosmos SDK
Today, we’re looking at the Agoric Network, a platform to program smart contracts securely to enable the future of global economic cooperation. Agoric is a smart contract platform built on the Cosmos SDK with Tendermint Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanism and a native asset to secure the network. In a nutshell, the Agoric chain enables developers to create decentralized applications using assemblage JavaScript smart contracts. Furthermore, it contains built-in decentralized finance (DeFi) building blocks, allowing Agoric to support a second local currency for facilitating economic activity and maintaining a healthy ecosystem.
Agoric, as we know it today, was founded in 2018 by Mark S. Miller, Dean Tribble, Bill Tulloh, and Brian Warner; learn more about the team here. Agoric launched its first Testnet in 2019, simply called: Agoric Testnet. It was focused on creating a platform that included:
- An Inter-chain Communications Protocol (a precursor to the Inter-Blockchain Communications protocol of Cosmos).
- Electronic Rights Transfer Protocol (ERTP), is a simple set of object APIs for expressing, transacting, and transferring a variety of digital rights between users and smart contracts.
- Digital native assets built-in JavaScript.
- Cosmos-SDK Integration gives access to Cosmos modules and features from JavaScript, such as the native ledger and staking architecture.
After the first Testnet, the network released a software update called Alpha in October 2020. The Alpha release introduced the operational smart contract platform to developers, which allowed them to build and deploy reusable DeFi building blocks such as fungible and non-fungible tokens, an atomic swap service, covered calls, a simple exchange with an order book, and an automated market maker as an on-chain DEX.
Interestingly, the object-based approach that the project has taken to smart contracts lets DeFi building blocks be directly reused. The smart contract framework sources existing technologies while providing a secure, stable infrastructure. Alpha was Agoric’s first step in actualizing an ecosystem of sophisticated components to build DApps or DeFi markets.
A month later, in November 2020, Agoric announced its Chainlink integration. Chainlink oracles enable the DApps to access reliable market data to trigger their contract’s execution and transfer real-world value between users.
Agoric Beta was the second software update of Agoric and introduced the foundational elements of their economy. Using Agoric’s Testnet environment, developers could rapidly build and deploy smart contracts on top of an economy incorporating test versions of the $BLD staking token and $IST local currency.
Furthermore, a new collection of DeFi building blocks gave access to the Beta app, where users could open treasury vaults or interact with the automated market maker. At the core of Beta, this was the first time Agoric had a visible contract (also known as open-source) for the community.
On March 22, 2021, Agoric launched its Incentivized Testnet. The Agoric testnet was a series of global, competitive challenges for validators to prepare, learn and earn points before Agoric’s Mainnet, which launched on November 21st, 2021.
The Testnet consisted of five phases, which focused on testing different aspects of validating and securing the Agoric blockchain network. Phase 1 was focused on onboarding, phase 2 on infrastructure, phase 3 on economic security, phase 4 was a stress test, and phase 5 was adversarial.
Agoric Economy Assets
Agoric has two digital assets that are closely connected. The $BLD token is used for securing the network and governance. Furthermore, $BLD also provides stability for $IST, the second asset of the network. $IST is a local currency used to pay for goods, services, and execution fees. The $IST asset is easily adaptable as payment for DApps built on the blockchain and is the primary mechanism for paying validators. Additionally, $IST is what makes it easy for developers to glue DApps together in the Beta Testnet.
So, with $IST, users can bring in collateral and mint $IST against the brought-in collateral as a loan. And then use that $IST to pay transaction fees and pay for other goods and services. Remember that minting $IST is the only way to obtain the asset.
Want to know how to stake your BLD? Read our step-by-step guide.
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Final Thoughts
Agoric is building an enterprise-grade secure smart-contract platform on the Cosmos SDK. In comparison to most of the protocols using an identity-based security architecture for their smart contracts, Agoric uses an object-capability security architecture. In addition to being security-oriented, the protocol empowers developers to create DApps using composable JavaScript smart contracts. JavaScript is the most popular coding language, with over 12 million developers worldwide.
Because of this widespread use, barriers to building on Agoric will be lower than on numerous protocols, and Agoric may well support a thriving community of blockchain developers. Agoric blockchain’s smart-contract approach helps solve many challenges and already has applications in DeFi and more traditional industries such as Logistics. Finally, because Agoric is built on the Cosmos SDK, it will be interoperable with one of the fastest-growing blockchain ecosystems, in which Stakin has been involved as a validator on multiple blockchains over the past years. For all these reasons, we are very excited to be taking part in the latest testnet of Agoric and looking forward to offering validation services on Mainnet, as well as other contributions.
DISCLAIMER: This is not financial advice. Staking, delegation, and cryptocurrencies involve a high degree of risk, and there is always the possibility of loss, including the failure of all staked digital assets. Additionally, delegators are at risk of slashing in case of security or liveness faults on some protocols. We advise you to do your due diligence before choosing a validator.
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