Agoric’s Composable Smart Contract Framework Reaches Mainnet-1 Milestone
Mainnet fulfills Agoric’s longtime vision of a JS framework for smart contracts. Take a moment to think back to JS in the 1990s, what it was like to build a web app back then, and contrast that experience with what the internet has become today. Because of the rise of frameworks, and the associated libraries of components, relative beginners can build today what few experts could build back then. That ease — that composability — is at the heart of Agoric’s mainnet-1 release.
Mainnet-1 provides a rich JavaScript stack for composable smart contracts. Using our library of contracts and contract components — options, loans, a variety of auctions, AMMs, and more — many novel contracts can be built by composing and parameterizing well-vetted components. The first enabled smart contract, the Parity Stability Module (PSM) of the Inter Protocol, creates and trades IST, the Cosmos-native Inter Stable Token. Contracts benefit from offer safety, provided by Zoe, our smart contract framework. Via Zoe, contracts trade fungible, semi-fungible, and non-fungible assets using ERTP, the Electronic Rights Transfer Protocol. Each contract runs in a vat, approximately a persistent process. Hardened JavaScript provides security within each vat. The SwingSet kernel provides security between vats, including protection from reentrancy attacks. We briefly explain these elements below.
What’s Ahead
Today marks the second major step in Agoric’s mainnet. Mainnet-1 follows mainnet-0, which happened on November 1, 2021.
On October 1, 2022, circulating supply was 43,670,064 BLD. Next week, on November 1, that number grows to 260,756,538 BLD. This week’s launch of Inter Protocol, along with the availability of IST, comes just in time to support this major liquidity moment on the network. (Keep up to date at agoric.com/economy.)
The tradeoff in Agoric’s phased mainnet releases is one between stability and leverage. Agoric maintains its focus on safety and on building strong, resilient architecture/mechanisms. You can always keep an eye on agoric.com/roadmap to see what’s ahead.
