Biconomy

What is Biconomy (BICO)?

Biconomy provides a full-stack transaction solution for Web3 developers, promising the ultimate toolkit to leverage smart contract wallets and build custom transaction journeys.

It covers solutions from onboarding to user engagement for a dApp (decentralized application) while remaining non-custodial. Focusing on presenting an effortless experience, Biconomy abstracts complexities away from users with its Smart Contract Wallets built atop multi-chain Relayer Infrastructure.

What users get is a seamless and familiar Web2 user experience with all the benefits of Web3. This means social login, account creation and recovery, easy and reliable fiat on and off ramps, and gasless transactions if developers choose to enable them.

Who are the Founders of Biconomy?

Biconomy was co-founded by Ahmed Al-Balaghi, Sachin Tomar, and Aniket Jindal. Al-Balaghi is a Queen Mary University graduate and was previously at the Chinese blockchain firm Viewfin. Jindal also has blockchain experience, having worked for UAE-based projects, and Tomar has a background in software engineering.

Biconomy is backed by several major blockchain venture capital firms, including Coinbase Ventures, Binance, Mechanism Capital, Huobi Ventures, and others. This level of institutional backing has assured Biconomy of wide listings on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges.

How Does Biconomy Work?

Biconomy’s backbone is the Smart Contract Wallet (SCW) which is created when any new user onboards to a dApp. The address of the SCW is counterfactual, and the actual contract is deployed when the user makes their first transaction.

The SCW is non-custodial, which means users can deposit funds that only they can control. Additionally, the address of the SCW remains consistent across chains. This makes the user experience blockchain agnostic within the dApp.

Each SCW is associated with an Externally Owned Account (EOA) which could be in the form of an account generated via social login or a traditional Metamask account. With social logins, unique private keys are generated by Web3Auth.

These EOAs initiate transactions for the SCW to execute. This is done in the form of a cryptographic signature, which is relayed by a Relayer.

The SCW can also act as a Gas Tank for the user, and any token held by it and accepted by the Relayer can be used to pay the gas fees back to the Relayer in the same transaction. This allows dApps to carry out transaction batching, meaning users can execute multiple actions in a single transaction.

Meanwhile, Biconomy also has a fluid on-ramp and off-ramp system thanks to its partnership with Transak. This is a developer integration toolkit that handles fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat trading seamlessly but does require a one-time KYC.

What makes Biconomy Unique?

One of the biggest hurdles when it comes to blockchain adoption is Gas. When using Ethereum, for instance, anyone wishing to perform any sort of transaction must first fund their wallet with ETH to pay for future gas. This means that new users of dApps generally need to purchase some sort of token, ETH or otherwise, before they can start using the dApp.

Biconomy can make transactions gasless via Account Abstraction. To do this, a Paymaster smart contract acts like a Gas Tank. This means that developers can deposit funds into the Paymaster and whitelist their dApp contracts to enable gas abstraction within their dApps.

Gas is also made a little bit easier to manage when users require it. Usually, users have to exit their dApp, purchase or swap for native tokens, and then return to the dApp in order to transact. Biconomy enables gas payments in ERC-20 tokens, meaning that gas fees can be managed easily as dApp developers want.

How is the Biconomy Network Secured?

Biconomy’s network is secured by its Relayer Node Service, which is responsible for signing valid transactions, paying for their gas fees, and sending them to the network.

Biconomy Relayers allow users to send transactions and take care of transaction signing, nonce management, gas pricing estimation, and resubmissions. Thanks to this system, users don’t need to worry about monitoring transactions to ensure they get mined.

Like many projects in the industry, Biconomy is focused on Ethereum. The BICO token follows the ubiquitous ERC-20 token standard and is secured by the Ethereum blockchain.

What is the Use of BICO?

BICO is the utility token of the Biconomy platform, used within its Relayer infrastructure. Node operators pay transaction fees in BICO to add data to the blockchain, and the token is also used in staking and decentralized governance.

How Much BICO is In Circulation?

The BICO token has a total supply of 1 billion, with over 450 million currently in circulation. Investors received close to a quarter of the token supply in three private rounds, including a seed sale and a pre-seed round.

5% of the token supply was used in a public sale, while the team was allocated a total of 22% of the BICO supply. Finally, the BICO foundation was given 10% of the token supply, with the remainder going to the community.

How Do You Buy BICO?

You can buy BICO on several top-tier cryptocurrency exchanges, including Ethereum-based decentralized platforms like Balancer, Sushi, and Uniswap.

How Do You Store BICO?

Since BICO is an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain, you only need an Ethereum-compatible wallet to store it safely. Many crypto holders choose to use cold wallets or hardware wallets like Ledger, but hot wallets like Metamask make it even easier to stake and vote on your BICO tokens.

Is BICO a Good Investment?

Biconomy is a compelling project for developers looking to make best-in-class Web3 applications, giving them the tools they need to make blockchain as user-friendly and smooth as Web2 apps tend to be.

This may well prove to be the final piece in the puzzle regarding throwing off the shackles of Web2 and ensuring a more equitable internet for all. While users may not even realize it, there’s every chance Biconomy will play an ever-greater role in their dApps.

It’s already off to a hot start in that regard, being used in more than a handful of extremely popular dApps like Curve Finance, Decental Games, and Perpetual Protocol. Its list of partnerships, which also includes The Sandbox, dYdX, and Animoca Brands, promises plenty in the months and years to come.