Biconomy

Biconomy is a multichain relayer protocol designed to enhance the onboarding and transaction experiences for users on decentralized applications (DApps). The project aims to make the interaction with web3 products as straightforward and user-friendly as those found in web2. Biconomy provides infrastructure to tackle several web3 challenges:

* Protocols can onboard users without requiring them to pay gas fees.
* Users have the flexibility to pay gas fees with any ERC-20 token they prefer.
* The platform simplifies the user experience by eliminating the need to switch networks.
* Transactions happen at a much quicker pace.

Essentially, Biconomy is all about optimizing gas usage and streamlining transactions, potentially lowering gas costs by up to 40%. This is accomplished through the use of meta transactions, enabling users to initiate transactions without gas fees while a third party covers the cost. By offering a non-custodial and efficient relayer infrastructure, Biconomy can deliver these services on a large scale.

The team behind Biconomy consists of blockchain entrepreneurs from around the world. Co-founder Ahmed Al-Balaghi, a graduate of Queen Mary University, has experience spanning over three years in the blockchain sector across China, the UK, and the UAE, and has worked for China's leading blockchain company, Viewfin. The other two co-founders, Indian entrepreneurs Sachin Tomar and Aniket Jindal, come from backgrounds in software engineering and blockchain projects in the UAE, respectively.

Biconomy has also received support from prominent blockchain venture capital firms, including Coinbase Ventures, Binance Launchpad, Mechanism Capital, Huobi Ventures, and others.

Biconomy tackles a common issue within the blockchain realm by offering a distinctive solution. Interacting with decentralized applications often lacks the ease and simplicity found in web2 applications. For example, web3 applications necessitate gas fees, unlike their web2 counterparts. On the Ethereum network, these fees are always paid in ETH, which users might prefer not to use. Furthermore, onboarding new users can be daunting due to the need for understanding web wallets, signing transactions, and comprehending gas intricacies.

Biconomy addresses this through its relayer infrastructure, which several protocols have already adopted:

* Curve Finance employs Biconomy for gasless meta transactions, allowing users to provide liquidity with idle BTC without incurring gas costs for swapping to RENBTC.
* Perpetual Protocol leverages Biconomy to offer traders gasless transactions on the xDAI chain; users benefit from blockchain-agnostic interactions without needing to switch RPC URLs in their web wallets.
* Decentral Games enhances its gaming experience by using Biconomy to eliminate gas fees, so players receive in-game currency without holding MATIC for transactions on the Polygon blockchain.
* Sapien Network, a social blogging platform, facilitates free transactions of SPN for new bloggers using Biconomy's gasless solutions.

BICO is the native utility token of the Biconomy network, with a total supply of 1 billion tokens. Node operators pay transaction fees in BICO to record data on the blockchain. Token holders can earn rewards by staking and helping to secure the network. Additionally, BICO is used for voting on governance proposals, including code changes, adding new services, or utilizing treasury funds. The token distribution is as follows:

* Community (38.12%): 7.5% at Token Generation Event (TGE), with a 47-month linear release.
* Foundation (10%): 10% at TGE, followed by a 12-month lockup and a 24-month linear release.
* Team and advisors (22%): 12-month cliff, then a 24-month linear release.
* Pre-seed round (6%): 9-month lockup, then a 27-month linear release.
* Seed round (6.38%): 9-month lockup, then a 24-month linear release.
* Private round (12%): 10% at TGE, with a 12-month lockup and 24-month linear release.
* Strategic investors (0.5%): 10% at TGE, 6-month lockup, then a 24-month linear release.
* Public sale (5%): 3-month linear release, or 10% at TGE, 6-month lockup, then a 6-month linear release.

Biconomy's smart contracts have been thoroughly audited by Quantstamp, MixBytes, Certik, and Halborn.

To enable gasless transactions, Biconomy offers a software development kit (SDK) that developers can incorporate into their DApp with minimal coding. Biconomy ensures a non-custodial and trustless environment, where users sign all transitions using their private keys. The signed data, relayed by Biconomy, remains immutable by the network. Furthermore, Biconomy plans to progressively decentralize its operations to enhance security.

BICO concluded its public sale on October 14, 2021.