How to join the Fetch.ai Mainnet 2.0 and Take it to the Next Level

It’s now more than a week since we launched our v2.0 mainnet; an important milestone but really just the start of our journey into decentralized artificial intelligence. In the previous article, I explained how people can delegate stake, while in this article I provide more detail on how the network and bridge have been implemented. In the following articles, I discuss the roadmap for the next six months, and how our token holders can get involved in shaping the future of the protocol.

Here we’ll cover the tokenomics of the blockchain and how staking will evolve over the coming months.

Tokenomics
One of the key features of any network is the design of the tokenomics. For the FET token, these have not changed since the deployment of the ERC-20 contract. The total supply is unchanged at 1,152,997,575 FET, however, some people will have noticed that the total supply on the mainnet was lower at its launch at 1,055,156,116 FET, and also that the network has an “inflation” rate of 3%. The plan for the first three years of the blockchain’s operation is that the missing tokens will be minted as block rewards to make the token supply on mainnet equal to the token supply of ERC-20 tokens. This will use up the 15% of token supply allocated for this purpose (termed “mining”) in the launch tokenomics document.

We chose 3% as it gives the network a three-year time-frame to become established. During this period, It also makes the token very much “hard” money with an issuance rate comparable to the 1.8% yearly increase in the supply of Gold over the last century. If we also take into account the tokens that become stranded by cryptographic keys being lost, it is likely that the increase in the supply of the FET token will be lower than even Gold. In the meantime, we will continue to implement our Minimal Agency Consensus, which provides a mechanism for purely fee-based security.

Bridge Tokenomics
Another key element of the mainnet launch are the properties of the bridge linking the native token and the Ethereum-hosted ERC-20 token. We chose to initially limit the amount that could be transferred across the bridge to ensure that the security of the network is not compromised by too large a proportion of the token supply being locked in the existing staking contract.

The following limits will apply to the bridge, which involve successive doubling of the limit until it is removed entirely in October, 2021.

Months 1–2, March 31st to May 31st, 2021: 60 million FET
Months 3–4, June 1st to July 15th: 120 million FET
Months 5–6, July 16th to September 30th: 250 million FET
Months 6+, October 1st onwards: Infinite (no limit)

Other important information that should be taken into account when using the bridge is that the following fees and limits on transferring tokens apply:

• ERC-20 to Native: Free (plus Ethereum transaction fee)
• Native to ERC-20: 50 FET (to cover Ethereum Gas)
• Upper Limit: 1 million FET
• Lower Limit: 100 FET

These reflect the high transaction cost on the Ethereum network and the minimal fees on the Fetch blockchain. It’s also important to note that the reverse native-to-Ethereum part of the bridge will not be opened until the 21st of April.

After transferring their tokens to our mainnet, users will find that the cost of delegating stake and interacting with contracts will initially be entirely cost-free and provide a far better user experience for our community. This guide provides instructions on how you can delegate tokens to start earning a return on your FET after transferring them to the native network.

Exchanges
The native token is not supported by any of our exchange partners at the current time. We are planning on performing an upgrade to the Stargate version of the Cosmos-SDK in the next couple of months. This will extend the networks that support interchain transfers with the Fetch.ai blockchain to the Cosmos Hub and many other chains. We will work with our exchange partners to provide support for the native token and will make a community announcement when these are available. In the meantime, token holders will need to use the ERC-20 token for trading FET.

In the next article in the series we’ll provide further information on how Ethereum staking will evolve over the next few months and how we’re planning on accelerating our validator program so that our community can take a leading role in operating the Fetch.ai network. Stay tuned!