In-depth Agoric: Cosmos Ecological Java_ Smart Contract Platform

This article understands the technical composition, economic system and characteristics of smart contracts of the Agoric project.

Written by: Uncle Red Army

What is Agoric and how does it leverage JavaScript smart contracts for Dapp development?

Agoric is a layer-1 proof-of-stake public blockchain designed to enable developers to quickly build secure smart contracts using one of the most popular programming languages on the planet - JavaScript.

The Agoric blockchain and crypto ecosystem is a smart contract platform that can quickly bring millions of developers to the forefront of DeFi. Hardened JavaScript makes blockchain programming accessible to 10 million+ JavaScript developers.

Hardened JavaScript provides the safe and stable environment developers need to build, deploy, and operate complex Dapps, NFTs, and DeFi marketplaces.

An integral part of the Cosmos ecosystem, the Agoric public blockchain is based on the battle-tested Tendermint Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus system with native IBC support.

Additionally, the Agoric programming model powered by our native marketplace infrastructure aims to form a cryptoeconomic standard library with the same exponential composability that has led to the explosion of JavaScript ecosystems such as Node.js, React.js increase.

In addition to being limited to the JavaScript programming language, the Agoric platform introduces Zoe, a "first-of-its-kind" platform service that enables secure economic composition between smart contracts. Zoe brings to Web3 developers on the Agoric platform the modern, pluggable component framework that dominates Web2 development.

What is Agoric Token? What is the intrinsic value and utility of Agoric's BLD token? What about IST tokens?

Agoric Chain has two native tokens: BLD and IST.

BLD is the native staking token of the Agoric blockchain, sold in the CoinList sale to secure the network and perform governance. IST is a fee token used to pay for on-chain services (such as gas), implement smart contracts on-chain, and support cross-chain activities.

ISTs are created on-chain through smart contracts authorized by BLD holders through governance. BLD and IST tokens have complementary roles to prioritize network security and scale the ecosystem.

Chain Security：

BLD holders provide security support for the blockchain by staking with validators. The Agoric blockchain is a proof-of-stake chain interface and is operated by a network of validators running using the battle-tested Tendermint BFT consensus algorithm in Cosmos.

Validators come from an open ecosystem of contributors and infrastructure providers. BLD stakers are rewarded in both BLD and IST tokens.

Protocol Governance：

BLD provides governance rights to the Agoric chain. BLD holders are the future stewards of the chain; they sponsor and vote for new initiatives.

Governance includes activities ranging from direct token voting on initiatives to electing committees to manage critical infrastructure. We expect this governance functionality to extend to core economic primitives in the Agoric ecosystem, such as the IST system.

IST Protocol：

BLD creates the platform and foundation for the IST token. The IST token is not part of the Agoric Token Sale, it is the fee token for the chain. It is conceived as a stable coin, pegged to the value of the United States dollar (USD), built as a collection of smart contracts called the IST protocol.

As envisioned, IST is fully backed by user-provided collateral, which may include BLD, assets built on the Agoric chain, and assets available in a cross-chain ecosystem of over $7.5 billion through the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC).

How do BLD holders get staking rewards? How does the locked BLD token achieve this?

BLD holders earn both BLD and IST rewards by delegating their BLD tokens to validators to support network security. The two sources of staking rewards are:

Issue new BLD tokens. In the early stages of the chain, new BLD tokens will be issued as an incentive to stakers. The exact details of this issuance plan are governed by BLD holders, but the projected plan is to distribute 250 million additional BLD tokens over three years. Please refer to the CoinList transaction page for details.

Inter Protocol fees. BLD stakers provide the security needed for the Inter Protocol to exist and are paid for their services as a result. Protocol fees paid in IST will be distributed to BLD stakers.

The agreement fee includes:

• Fees incurred when the user vault creates IST;
• Transactions on the local Agoric Automated Market Maker incur a protocol fee.

Whether locked or unlocked, it can be staked with validators to ensure chain security. Although locked and cannot be transferred, they can be staked with validators to secure the chain and earn rewards like unlocked BLD tokens.

All staking rewards are unlockable, which ensures that there will be liquidity tokens available for active network participants prior to the unlock event from BLD tokens purchased in the sale.

What is the Inter protocol and why is it so important to the Agoric ecosystem?

The Inter Protocol implements the IST stable coin. IST is the native fee token of the Agoric platform and is poised to play a bigger role in the $7.5 billion+ cross-chain ecosystem.

Opportunity: As envisioned, the Inter Protocol provides a stable token for the IBC ecosystem and the broader cross-chain economy. IST tokens are fully collateralized by cross-chain system assets and anchored against the United States Dollar (USD) for broad accessibility.

At present, the competition in the cross-chain ecosystem to find a stable token that supports the endorsement of ATOM, OSMO, SCRT and other available assets is increasingly fierce. The Agoric Blockchain provides the ideal platform needed to build applications to support healthy stable tokens in the cross-chain ecosystem and beyond.

The Inter Protocol consists of several economic primitives, all written in the Agoric smart contract framework and tightly integrated with chain functions: vault system and getIST, automatic market maker, and staking reward distribution. Let's look at each part of the Inter protocol in turn.

Vault System: Allow holders of encrypted assets (such as BLD, ATOM, OSMO, etc.) to lock these assets in the vault to create IST. The set of accepted assets is determined by protocol governance, as described above.

Automated Market Maker (AMM): The native Agoric AMM supports the Inter protocol by ensuring sufficient market depth to liquidate user vaults. In addition to playing a role in the Inter protocol, the local AMM will also support asset transactions initiated on Agoric or brought to the Agoric chain via IBC.

getIST: BLD stakers can lock their staked BLD to create IST - similar to Vault. This enables BLD stakers to participate in the ecosystem while still guaranteeing chain security.

Rewards and Reserves: Fees generated by Inter Protocol operations flow to BLD stakers. Part of the fee is kept as a reserve by the Inter protocol. The Reserve Fund further protects the Inter Protocol from fluctuations in collateral value by covering Vault liquidation shortfalls.

What is the Zoe smart contract framework? How does Zoe help developers build applications on Agoric?

The Zoe smart contract framework is Agoric's means of providing developers with security and composability. Although blockchain technology has had a lot of success over the past few years, it is still in its infancy. Even contracts with simple business logic take months or even years to secure and often fail.

Zoe supports the development of smart contracts using a modern, pluggable component framework, which has become the dominant paradigm for Web2 applications. The platform is designed to accelerate development and reduce the risk of using and building smart contracts.

A core difference between Zoe and other smart contract platforms is "offer-safety", which ensures that all on-chain transactions are either settled and closed, or the content of the transaction provided by the user is returned to them.

In blockchains such as Ethereum, users have no such protection: users directly request to send tokens to a smart contract like UniSwap; if the contract fails due to errors, malicious code, etc., users cannot get their provided assets back mechanism.

In contrast, using Zoe on Agoric, the user issues an exchange request by means of a "quote"** -- "I'll give you X tokens if and only if you give me Y tokens", and Provide X tokens to the Zoe smart contract infrastructure rather than directly to the contract itself.

The contract is then notified of the offered exchange, and only receives X tokens if it provides the infrastructure with the Y tokens the user wants. The infrastructure itself ensures that users get what they want or that they provide asset recovery mechanisms.

Quote security is a pervasive transaction model in Agoric that allows both developers and users to avoid catastrophic errors that often occur in other systems.

The Zoe smart contract framework also includes the Electronic Rights Transfer Protocol (ERTP), which is Agoric's standard for creating and transferring tokens and other digital assets.

The growing library of components uniformly supports various types of digital assets and contracts, including fungible tokens, non-fungible tokens, and remote assets from other chains.

How does Agoric facilitate cross-chain activity, and what opportunities does this offer developers and users of the Agoric ecosystem?

The Cosmos IBC protocol is an implementation of the original idea of Agoric smart contract interoperability, adapted to the specific needs of Tendermint and the Cosmos SDK. Working with teams such as Informal, Interchain Foundation, and Tendermint Inc, the Agoric team is deeply involved in the development of the protocol.

The Agoric platform is unique in that the functionality required for applications on multiple blockchains has been built from the ground up. This makes the Agoric platform an ideal place to build IBC native applications.

Agoric will be launched with IBC functionality and integrated into the platform. Agoric chain assets like BLD and IST can be used by IBS applications including Osmosis DEX, Evmos and other supported IBC environments. Cosmos users will be able to use IBC assets such as LUNA, ATOM, and OSMO on the Agoric platform. As the IBC network effect continues to grow, bridged assets from other L1 (layer one) blockchains may also be available on the platform.

By integrating IBC smoothly, other chains and their assets appear to JavaScript developers as just more smart contract building blocks!

What is the network decentralization plan and the foundation token plan?

Agoric is an important large project. The main allocation of BLD tokens is used for various support purposes or long-term alignment entities to incentivize the growth of the Agoric platform.

In most cases, this will result in locked tokens. Until the BLD tokens are actually locked, they are classified as "possible to circulate".

Network Decentralization Fund: The Network Decentralization Fund aims to expand the decentralization of the system by staking BLD with a wide range of validators, enacting liquidity mining, and incentivizing early component developers. Most of these distributions will be locked for 2-4 years, like all currently circulating BLD tokens.

For example, incentivized on the testnet bounty scheme and a 2-year lockup of funds allocated from the network decentralization fund (as reflected on the Token Circulation chart on the CoinList transaction page).

However, if some funds are allocated to an on-chain DAO in the future, that DAO may make it liquid. Because there are no locked BLD tokens within the network decentralized fund, they are currently classified as "in circulation," even though there are no plans to put them into use until the public sale unseals them.

Infrastructure: An infrastructure is being formed which, once formed, will be managed by a diverse group of Agoric stakeholders to advance the benefits of decentralized technologies built on or using the Agoric blockchain and related technologies.

Similar to a web decentralized fund, if the foundation chooses to lock up some percentage of its BLD tokens, it may be classified as "in circulation," even though there are no plans to put them into use until the public sale unseals them.

How does the community participate in Agoric?

Agoric offers several ways for the community to participate. Please review the options below and choose your path! Want to contribute something different? Send a message on Discord:

• **Developers:**Agoric invites DeFi entrepreneurs, the JavaScript community, and native crypto developers to build a lot of critical infrastructure using Agoric components. First, please visit
• Validator: Want to set up a validator and secure the Agoric chain? Look no further! go to
• **Writers and Content Creators:**Agoric is always seeking high-quality content on topics relevant to the Agoric ecosystem. If this is the type of writing you enjoy, then we'd love to hear from you. Some things of particular interest include aspects such as tutorials, thought pieces, build processes, and industry insights. Just leave a comment in our #contribute channel on Discord:
• Purchase Merchandise: Maybe you're looking for some funky merch to show your support for us. Please visit the Agoric store at .