PicoSwap: The Foundation of Polkadot & Edgeware DeFi

PicoSwap
3 min readMay 3, 2021

🌶 PicoSwap

Pico is a protocol for decentralized exchange built on Edgeware, a pioneering Polkadot smart contract blockchain.

In 2019, Edgeware conducted its genesis distribution by allocating 90% of the network to participants in the lockdrop, who timelocked ETH to receive genesis EDG. In 2020, the network launched and activated on-chain governance, allowing holders to come forth and participate in a true community-led governance process.

Many projects have already announced their intention to build on Edgeware, including DeFi protocols for privacy, perpetuals and synthetic options, and undercollateralized lending, and core infrastructure like mixers and NFT ecosystems.

🐣 Origin Story

Decentralized Finance has become a massive industry and when compounded with the heft of the NFT market, we are seeing the effects of the volume in exorbitant ETH gas fees. Polkadot and Edgeware can offer a solution for these constraints. Pico aims to provide a solid DeFi foundation for the Edgeware ecosystem and reduce gas fees for traders and liquidity providers.

We are launching a decentralized exchange based on a modified version of the Uniswap core contracts, with a community-oriented token distribution giving 80% of tokens to the community. Additionally, we developed a friendly web interface and a fast, easy-to-use mobile app.

Our goal is to launch a user-friendly product in all senses: interface, speed, transactions, and community. After launch we will continue to be active members in the community and will contribute to the community-led governance and development.

Over time, we’ll focus on providing the best decentralized exchange for the Edgeware ecosystem, including providing full support for bridged assets, EVM and WASM-based tokens, and more. We will announce our trading pairs in the coming weeks.

⭐️ PICO Token

The PicoSwap platform will come with the creation of the PICO token. PICO will be the native currency for PicoSwap and will be required for paying transaction fees.

PICO will also serve as the governance token for the PicoSwap protocol and offers voting rights for token holders. Shortly after launch, we will launch on-chain governance through Snapshot and Commonwealth.

As PicoSwap is a community-focused protocol, the vast majority of PICO will be given away to the community. At Genesis a DAO will be created with 25% of all tokens for funding development of the PicoSwap ecosystem. Community members can then create bounties for technical development, marketing projects, etc. that they most want to see.

🥇 PICO Token Distribution

All swaps on PicoSwap will pay a 0.3% transaction fee, which must be denominated in PICO. This will be split between liquidity providers (0.25%) and PICO token holders (0.05%). Over time these amounts may increase or decrease according to governance voting.

Pico tokens will be distributed accordingly, with 80% going to the community and 20% going to the core team:

  • 20% of tokens will be assigned to the team, vesting over 2 years
  • 20% for a DAO to fund future protocol development
  • 5% staked as initial liquidity, controlled by the DAO
  • 55% for liquidity providers (incentive programs announced in 2 weeks)

For more information about the Pico launch and token distribution, visit our Discord, Twitter, or Telegram.

⚙️ About Edgeware

Edgeware is also a fully EVM-compatible chain, which means that the full stack of Ethereum wallets and developer tooling can immediately be used with Edgeware. At the same time, Edgeware is built on Parity Substrate, the framework that powers Polkadot, the most widely adopted blockchain developer platform after Ethereum.

This means we will be forward-compatible with a wide range of Substrate modules that will be built in the future. Additionally, we expect that Edgeware will gain access to interoperability and other services by becoming a part of the Polkadot network. This makes Edgeware an ideal platform for experiments that require advanced technology and community to come together.

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