Source: Logowik
Among the few Indian Web3 companies making waves in the Web3 space is Biconomy. The company provides a gas-efficient, scalable, no-custodial re-layer infrastructure that aims to simplify transactional processes for Web3 firms. The company also has the BICO token, which is listed on many major exchanges, including currently WazirX.
Among its many plaudits, Biconomy become even the first Indian web3 firm to listing a token on Coinlist, which in itself is an indication that the platform isn’t withinside the web3 space to take benefit of the crypto craze. Coinlist is an initial coin offering platform, and has a diligence process that keeps simply any web3 firm from list a token on its lists.
What is Biconomy?
Simply put, Biconomy wants to become the Stripe of the Web3 world. The company was founded by Aniket Jindal, who studied at Fudan University in Shanghai and worked at Binance in 2017. He returned to India in 2018 and decided to found Biconomy with the co-founders, Ahmed AlBalaghi and Sachin Tomar to facilitate the adoption of decentralized applications. While Balaghi was an advisor and seed investor in the Matic Network, now called Polygon, Tomar was a software engineer at Samsung Electronics before joining Biconomy.
“We’re solving for Web3 creators and players. Our mission is to simplify the future of transactions and ensure that decentralization is truly accessible to all,” the company says on its website.
The company raised $9 million in a private funding round led through DACM and Mechanism Capital in July last year. It additionally has strategic investments from Coinbase, Bain Capital, Coinfund, NFX True Ventures, Proof Group, Ledgerprime and more. DeFi firm Aave’s founder Stani Kulechov has additionally backed the company.
So far, the company has partnered with more than 100 dApps, including Curve Finance DeFi platform, Perpetual Protocol trading platform, gaming platform Decentral Games, social blogging platform Sapien Network, and more. At the time of writing, the BICO on WazirX was trading at around Rs.148.
BICO Token is the network’s native governance token
The BICO token is the main driver of the Biconomy platform. According to Coinmarketcap, the token has a market cap of more than $189 million as of February and a circulating supply of more than 106 million tokens. Their total supply is one billion.
The BICO token is the native governance token of the Biconomy network and has two main purposes: to provide network fees and incentives for stakeholders. This means that node operators pay network fees in Biconomy and at the same time get paid for work in BICO. they put transactions on the network to validate.
Node operators must stake BICO tokens to join the Biconomy network, and the token helps with other aspects of network operations as well.
Perhaps most importantly, the token also acts as a mechanism that allows others to have a say in the network. As a governance token, BICO token holders can propose and vote on decisions that affect the long-term progress of the network. Any token holder can propose changes to the network, and such changes can only be approved if there is consensus among the majority of holders.
What role does Biconomy play in web3?
The Biconomy network is essentially aim to allow transactions without gas, which essentially means that he lowers the costs of DeFi platforms that facilitate transactions in the web3 world. The company has three main products: Mexa, Forward and Hyphen.
Mexa is the one that enables non-gas transactions in decentralized applications, while Forward allows users to pay transaction fees with tokens instead of cash. Hyphen, on the other hand, aims to enable faster and cheaper token transfers across various blockchain networks.
Together, the three Biconomy products offer multiple use cases. On the one hand, it offers gas-free transactions, but on the other hand it also enables interactions between layer 1 and layer 2 solutions and finally can become part of any web3 platform, which in a way involves crypto transactions.
Importance of the BICO token
While tokens like BICO have more uses than just utility tokens, they are also traded on exchanges like WazirX. In the longer term, tokens like BICO will attract serious crypto investors investing in the long-term development of a company like Biconomy that contributes to decentralization of Apps and finance rather than single tokens that may or may not survive. The token can be traded in both INR and USD on WazirX and was trading at around Rs. 148 at the time of writing.
