The year 2022 was the year Agoric reached mainnet-1. It was the year we’ve been building toward all along, ever since Agoric was founded four years ago. We closed things out with our last community call of 2022 on December 8 and our last validator call on December 22, and wanted to run through 10 key milestones and accomplishments (mainnet-1 included) that made 2022 special:
1. Mainnet-1 Launched
In October we launched our Hardened JavaScript stack for composable smart contracts on-chain, along with the first Zoe contracts that support the Inter Protocol MVP launch. This launch was a major milestone for Agoric, representing the first production use of the Agoric virtual machine and smart contract framework.
2. Inter Protocol Goes Live
The Inter Protocol contracts launched as part of mainnet-1 coordinate to allow the minting of the IST stable token. IST is used as the primary token to pay for execution on the Agoric chain, but also is a product demanded through the Interchain. IST outstanding has grown to 1.3 million, with 441 users purchasing Agoric wallets to trade IST on the Agoric chain. Over 97% of minted IST is trading off the Agoric chain, on major Cosmos decentralized exchanges such as Osmosis and Crescent.
3. BLD Public Sale
At the end of 2021, we had our first public sale, which brought in about 48,000 new token holders, with about 50 million BLD purchased. On July 1, 2022, the first 15,000,000 BLD tokens (1.5% of the Agoric network) of that sale unlocked, and there have been steady monthly unlocks for those holders. As of October 1, 2022, circulating supply of BLD reached 43,670,064. And as of November 1, available BLD grew to 260,756,538.
4. Validators Made IBC Happen
At this point it feels like our validators are close friends — especially after the bug hunt that took place this summer so we could get to IBC. Not only did we get the network to a healthy state, the validators took the lead in connecting Agoric to the other IBC-enabled Cosmos zones. They stepped up big time.
5. Mainnet 2 Partners Announced
We announced five partner dapps being built in advance of the upcoming launch of mainnet-2. These are KREAd from Kryha, LH2 Staking from RBF Labs, Crabble from Bytepitch, QuickWork from AgreeWe, and Calypso from Joe Schnetzler. These are all supported through bounty programs and hackathons. And better yet, given the open-source component nature of the Agoric platform, these will be available not only for use but for creative reuse by other devs.
6. Events — All Around the World
In February we worked with the Blue Lava Conference, which was all about helping web2 developers come up to speed regarding blockchain. It was purely focused on web2 developers’ interests: what excites them, what use cases they want to pursue, what problems they need to solve. This theme — laying the groundwork for the growth of the platform with mainstream JavaScript developers — carried through other events we participated in throughout the year: Gateway in Prague, Cosmoverse in Medellín, Consensus in Austin, and Messari Mainnet in New York.
7. DCF Created
Ric Shreves spearheaded the launch of the Decentralized Cooperation Foundation (DCF) in February. It started with getting all the nuts and bolts operational side of things together, filling out the seats on the board of directors, and then delegating 45 million tokens from the DCF treasury with the Agoric validators. With the ball rolling, they stepped up to help steward governance, community, and the community fund. In 2023, DCF is looking ahead to its own bounty program and working even more on governance matters.
8. Security & Audits
As mainnet-1 was being readied for release, we’d already had numerous successful purple-team scenarios and validator-supported efforts to challenge the security properties of the system. We’ve also gone through a handful of vulnerability assessments this year, and we’re gearing up to do it all over again (and more!) in 2023.
9. Growing Community Participation
We track community items and community participation. Since August, our community alone has engaged in about 35 separate activities, discussions, governance participation, and hooking up IBC channels — all of which has made the network come to life. It’s been a fantastic year for participation in our ecosystem, and sets the stage for an even bigger 2023. Join in at community.agoric.com.
10. A Bounty of Bounties
Over $200,000 have been paid out for completed bounty work in the past year at Agoric. These bounties include: NFT bounties, DeFi bounties, DAO/governance bounties, developer tooling, and workshop bounties. Of our five mainnet partners, three started off as bounty developers working on different components that are especially useful for the Agoric ecosystem. And those are just the highlights. The year 2022 was a huge one for Agoric and for our growing ecosystem — and 2023 looks to be even more so. Thanks to everyone who contributed to our growth and success. Happy holidays from all of us at Agoric!
