What is LAOS?

In recent years, blockchain technology has gained popularity and has been adopted by a wide variety of industries. One of the latest additions to the blockchain community is LAOS, a decentralized platform that offers an infrastructure capable of scaling your digital property, instantly and securely, without bridges, and in a truly non-custodial manner, in contrast to centralized solutions common today.

To do this, LAOS presents an architecture that allows other blockchain ecosystems to connect to LAOS, in order to download a significant fraction of their transactions and support applications that take advantage of the full potential of digital assets. Thus, creators can build on the blockchain of their choice, and mint their assets without needing to trust third parties, without bridges involved and without forcing their users to wrap their tokens or buy new coins.

In this article, we will explore LAOS, its architecture, unique features and advantages for users in detail. We will also discuss the challenges and limitations LAOS faces and how the team behind the project is working to overcome them.

LAOS, a blockchain to unite them all

LAOS is the culmination of the work and research of Alessandro Siniscalchi, Toni Mateos and Alun Evans, who in November 2023, presented the white paper From this project.

In this document, LAOS It is presented as a decentralized platform that uses blockchain technology in order to provide an infrastructure that allows developers of DApps create apps that unlock the full power of digital ownership. This seeks to migrate from the common mentality of extreme scarcity and the associated speculative dynamics to one of abundance and captured user-generated value (UGV).

Basically, LAOS allows developers to create a non-fungible token within LAOS, and thereby decide whether this same token is created in parallel on other compatible chains (e.g. Ethereum). All this while the management of the token can be maintained in LAOS, allowing better management of the resources and operation of the digital token that has been created.

To achieve this, the vision developed in the white paper, which will be implemented progressively, is based on four pillars, which are:

Polkadot Relay Chain

Polkadot Relay Chain technology (fundamental part of the protocol Polkadot) provides the foundation for LAOS, ensuring the security of LAOS Parachain from day one. Relay Chain validators provide validation for every transaction processed by the LAOS Parachain, while also facilitating the transfer of assets and connections between Parachains through cross-consensus messaging (XCM, Polkadot's parachain messaging system).

LAOS Ownership Parachain

The second pillar of LAOS is known as the LAOS Ownership Parachain. It sits on top of the Relay Chain and manages the LAOS-specific core technical architecture. This component is responsible for:

1. Manage LAOS token
2. Handling ownership of assets created through bridgeless patterns
3. Facilitate trustless transfers of LAOS assets and utility tokens between LAOS and the broader Polkadot ecosystem.
4. Manage the state and execution module of LAOS Relay Chain and EvoChains
5. Governing the entire LAOS ecosystem

LAOS Specialized Relay Chain

The third pillar of LAOS is known as the LAOS Specialized Relay Chain. This specialized relay chain connects to the Ownership Parachain through a single trustless bridge and provides security to the EvoChains. The Relay Chain has limited functionality and is orchestrated by the Ownership Parachain via XCM commands. It does not have a native token and uses reserved LAOS tokens from the Ownership Parachain.

LAOS EvoChains

Finally, we have the LAOS EvoChains is where assets are created and evolved. They are connected to the LAOS Relay Chain via the standard Polkadot Parachain pattern and share the same execution module, which is orchestrated by the LAOS Relay Chain. When an EvoChain reaches saturation, new identical EvoChains will be generated, improving capacity and ensuring optimal performance, paving the way for massive scaling in the dynamic NFT landscape.

Characteristics and benefits

All of the above leads us to explore the features and benefits that LAOS has to offer developers who use its technology. First of all, let's remember that LAOS offers a comprehensive solution for digital asset management.

To do this, LAOS uses technology Universal Location for Cross Consensus Messaging (XCMv3) of Polkadot and an approach that completely separates ownership of assets from their attributes to allow data to live and be managed on separate blockchains. This allows creators to mint and evolve assets using LAOS and manage them as tokens. ERC721/1155 fully compatible on any other blockchain, such as Ethereum, Polygon and Solana.

Second, LAOS offers high scalability and performance, with theoretical performance in line with that of Polkadot, which can reach a transactions per second (TPS) rate of 200K-1M after the next asynchronous backup update. As a Polkadot Parachain, users also benefit from a total combined TPS of 100K-1M with fast finality in an ecosystem with smart contracts, DeFi and data storage.

Decentralized Asset Identity

Another relevant point is that LAOS also introduces a new protocol for decentralized asset identity that allows for a variety of new use cases, such as extending the metadata of any asset on any blockchain and conferencing new attributes to assets. . This opens the door to the creation of new markets that incentivize DApps to accept foreign assets.

Instead of using artificial scarcity and speculation to increase the initial value of assets, LAOS creates a User Generated Value (UGV) economy where assets increase in value based on how they are used. . This incentivizes users to participate in apps, video games, online and social activities, and the ecosystem at large, creating an abundance mentality that drives user acquisition, retention, and loyalty.

In summary, LAOS offers a comprehensive and secure solution for digital asset management, with an intuitive and easy-to-use user interface, a wide variety of digital asset options, transparency, scalability, interoperability and decentralization.

LAOS Use Cases

The high scalability of LAOS, together with its inherited capabilities for smart contracts (remember that Polkadot has this capability), allow the network to have multiple use cases. Among them, the LAOS team highlights:

1. Gaming: Using LAOS's bridgeless minting and evolution, gaming can mint 100 million assets or more on Ethereum, at minimal cost, allowing players to trade, lend, and amplify their assets using Ethereum's vast applications.
2. Collectibles: Existing collections are revamped, with their creators using LAOS to extend and evolve their initially static image and metadata, for example by creating sponsored or seasonal campaigns. Marketplaces and explorers display past and current statuses easily, ensuring the collection's continued relevance and value throughout the year.
3. NFT Markets: Major NFT marketplaces attract more users by offering massive minting on Ethereum through no-code and API solutions. They absorb minimum gas costs for all users who meet certain criteria and relay transactions to provide a gas-free experience.
4. Interoperability: Games increase user acquisition and retention by allowing players to use assets from any blockchain. Users pay for imports through in-app purchases, after which the developer uses LAOS to extend the permissionless metadata to match the style of the game and introduce new attributes that evolve within the game.
5. Applications: Developers protect themselves from legal problems related to their assets considered securities, moving their minting and evolution to LAOS. Now, instead of using private servers, assets are securely stored in decentralized systems and can be verified on-chain.
6. User-generated content: User customization of individual assets, certified on-chain through LAOS, makes them truly unique, ensuring their value is based on more than scarcity and speculation.
7. Game Distribution Platforms: Major platforms partner with Copyright Offices to enforce copyright of assets across blockchains, using LAOS Decentralized Identity.

Tokenomics

The LAOS platform has recently launched its utility token known as $LAOS. This token's main objective is to boost the entire LAOS ecosystem so that it works safely, efficiently and fairly.

The $LAOS token is essential and inseparable from facilitating the core functions of the LAOS ecosystem. Stakeholders in each part of the LAOS stack interact with the token in their respective capacities, making the token an invaluable tool for aligning incentives across the ecosystem.

The control of this token and the governance of the project is in the hands of the LAOS Foundation, a non-profit organization, established in Zug, Switzerland, since summer 2023. Its mission is to promote the growth of a decentralized ecosystem and support cutting-edge technologies and applications in the field of digital property, operationalizing the capabilities of LAOS to scale other mature blockchains and empowering both creators and users.

Ultimately, LAOS aims to become the consensus system that all other chains use to scale their digital property transactions, regardless of centralized oversight and control. This democratization of ownership requires the implementation of a powerful tool that can operate as a medium of exchange for platform users, security, and a fairly distributed marker of future decision-making. The $LAOS token is specifically designed with these different, but essential, goals in mind.

LAOS Token Utility

While the $LAOS token is necessarily ubiquitous throughout the LAOS ecosystem (and beyond), its core functionality can be refined into three uses. The $LAOS token drives asset minting and evolution, regardless of the chosen blockchain. Additionally, it distributes decision-making power from a centralized structure to an entire community, allowing token holders to vote on key protocol decisions.

For example, LAOS is needed to pay transaction fees. During the early stages of the project, these transactions will primarily go towards downloading unbridged minting from other chains, asset metadata extensions, and the usual gas fees for transactions such as token transfers, affecting governance, or staking. In later stages of the project, $LAOS tokens will be used to operate on the future LAOS relay chain and evolution chains.

Another example of using $LAOS is staking. Under the security of the network, validators receive $LAOS tokens as a reward for the inclusion of new valid blocks in the LAOS parallel chain. Additionally, delegates can stake their LAOS tokens to unlock a range of benefits, including additional token rewards and governance rights, while helping to preserve the security of the network.

And finally, it can also be used for the decentralized governance of the protocol. Thus, any interested party in possession of LAOS tokens will have the option to participate in the governance of the LAOS network. This token model brings about the alignment of incentives between different stakeholders allowing participation in the future of LAOS through proposals, discussions and voting.

Token distribution

$LAOS has been created with an initial issuance of 1.000 billion tokens. Token distribution is designed to ensure a fair and balanced distribution that supports both the development and longevity of LAOS. The foundation seeks to encourage active participation, reward contributors, and incentivize stakeholders in a way that aligns with its community-focused ethos.

Added to this is an inflation process that will aim to increase the issuance of $LAOS by 10%, and that will begin to be fulfilled from the third year of operation of the token. Once inflation is initiated, on-chain governance will approve the allocation rate of collectors' rewards and any potential distributions to the community treasury.

Inflationary token issuances may fluctuate over time, influenced by changes in parachain block times, network conditions, differences in relay chain performance, runtime errors, and various other factors. To adapt to changing circumstances, future adjustments of token inflation can be decided through the token governance mechanism.

Fortress

The LAOS token vesting process uses a release schedule to maintain the long-term stability of the project. This schedule establishes the time for tokens assigned to different stakeholders to gradually become accessible. This measure protects against market flash flooding, encourages continued engagement, and protects the value of the LAOS token. The foundation is committed to transparency, equity and sustainable growth within its ecosystem.

The following image shows the details of the $LAOS vesting process:

The future of LAOS

At this point it is clear that LAOS is a very powerful project despite being very young. After just a few months of development, LAOS has not only created a powerful parachain infrastructure on Polkadot, but has also created a strong tokenomics with very clear objectives.

In fact, its roadmap indicates that by the end of 2024, the LAOS network will already have support for a complete integration with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, allowing the development of bridges with Ethereum and other EVM-compatible chains to operate tokens and NFTs in a completely transparent way.

In addition, it is also expected to integrate and enable the Decentralized Governance functionalities of the protocol, enable XCM between parachains (for greater interoperability in Polkadot and Substrate networks) and finally begin the listing process on DEX and CEX, so that users and holders of tokens can start trading with the $LAOS utility token.