Following testing of the network infrastructure and staking dynamics by more than 100 validators, Agoric, a JavaScript-native smart contract platform, has confirmed the introduction of its public chain (after the completion of a private token sale).
As mentioned in an update shared with CI:
“Committing to support the continued development of Agoric and its mission to build the smart contract technology for the decentralized economy, the $32M private sale saw participation from early investors, including MetaStable, Polychain, Rockaway, and Gumi Ventures.”
Additionally, it has managed to gain support from a group of backers including Placeholder, Dokia Capital, NGC Ventures, Spartan Group, Compound VC, DAO Maker, LD Capital, Nalu Capital, Spark Capital, RedBeard Capital, Acrew Capital, P2P, RELM Insurance, Figment, Chorus.One, Age Fund, Iqlusion, and Pylon.
Tony Gu, Partner at NGC Ventures, stated:
“As an active crypto fund, we at NGC Ventures see a lot of promising, innovative projects at various stages of development. Agoric’s team of pioneers in smart contract development stands out from the crowd. We see tremendous potential for Agoric to shape the future of DeFi and be the springboard for the next generation of change-makers.”
Funding from the private sale should be channeled towards supporting the next stage of Agoric’s growth, “focusing on scaling the ecosystem and developer programs.”
Building on various initiatives to incentivize infrastructure development, like the recent developer bounties, additional funding will “see the launch of further entry points into DeFi via the Agoric smart contract development economy,” the announcement revealed.
As a Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchain creating a novel JavaScript-native smart contract platform, Agoric provides developers and enterprises “a safe, reliable, and cross-chain ecosystem for building and deploying DeFi applications.”
Agoric’s composable smart contract development environment is “a first of its kind to provide reusable governance, lending, and trading components to propel the creators of the interoperable DeFi economy, all in a familiar JavaScript development environment,” the announcement noted.
Chris Burniske, Co-Founder and Partner at Placeholder, remarked:
“Smart contracts on open data layers create the foundation for a system reboot of finance, technology, and digital life. Led by a team of esteemed pioneers in smart contract technology, Agoric is building a protocol that will bring the JavaScript developer community–the world’s largest developer community–into the fold of the metaverse movement.”
This initial phase of the launch marks the introduction of the BLD staking token and the Agoric chain, “built using the Cosmos SDK. BLD (‘build) secures and stabilizes the economy by supporting staking, governance, and decentralization.”
Agoric has teamed up with Keplr, a browser extension wallet for the inter-blockchain ecosystem, in order to support BLD. Keplr will also offer services for Agoric, including governance and staking.
Dean Tribble, CEO and Co-Founder of Agoric, said:
“Today, the DeFi development environment is failing to reach its full potential. By bringing DeFi to the overlooked JavaScript community, Agoric is blasting open the DeFi economy to over 10 million innovative and curious developers, enterprises, and institutions to create the dapps of tomorrow.”
Agoric is being led CEO Dean Tribble, a former Principal Architect at Microsoft, and Chief Scientist Mark S. Miller, a Google Research Scientist whose Agoric Open Systems Papers (1988) were “the first clear vision of software components creating and participating in markets,” the release noted.