LAOS Network is the Layer-1 enabling game developers and Real-World Asset tokenizers to create dynamic assets across any EVM chain at scale, In an exclusive interview with BitcoinWorld, We discussed what is its primary purpose of Laos Network & How it helps in RWA.
What is the LAOS Network, and what is its primary purpose? What are the key features of LAOS, particularly its Bridgeless Minting capability?
LAOS Network is the Layer-1 enabling game developers and Real-World Asset tokenizers to create dynamic assets across any EVM chain at scale.
It is one of the first Layer 1 protocols that connects Polkadot to Ethereum, Polygon, their L2s, and any other EVM-compatible chain, without bridges. These blockchains can offload a significant portion of their transactions to LAOS while maintaining their users, wallets, and apps within their native chain. We estimate that about 20% of all transactions in every major blockchain can be offloaded to LAOS without bridges. This core feature, Bridgeless Minting, allows the minting of unlimited assets on these chains without incurring native gas fees, eliminating the need for bridges or wrapped currency, while still being fully compatible with their DApps and marketplaces.
As an example, LAOS allows tokenization in Ethereum at an unprecedented scale, allowing the tokenized assets to live where liquidity sits. Think of building blockchain representations of the ownership of every song in a record label or every real estate property in a country, fractionalizing each into millions of shares, and allowing them to be traded globally, permissionlessly. And insteading of doing so in yet another new chain that nobody uses, doing so in the most mature blockchains, where all the money, and all the attention, resides.
Could you explain what a Crowdloan is and how it relates to the LAOS Network?
In the Polkadot ecosystem, securing a parachain slot allows projects like LAOS to build on Polkadot and create a blockchain with advanced security, scalability, and performance. But earning a parachain slot isn’t easy – you need to win an auction first.
A project can win an auction either by self-funding this slot or by using a Crowdloan to give the broader Polkadot community a chance to participate in a trustless and permisionless way. Crowloan participants can support their favorite projects by locking DOT in exchange for future rewards from the project in the form of their token.
As it relates to the LAOS Network, we are planning to adopt the Crowdloan approach to help secure our parachain slot, offering 100 LAOS tokens for each DOT contributed by supporters.
How does LAOS aim to enhance scalability compared to other blockchains?
LAOS is built on top of the tech stack of Polkadot, making it already way more scalable than many of its predecessors.
In the future, this scalability will be improved via sharding, eventually boasting a throughput larger than of all Ethereum later-2s combined, at the disposal of all mature EVM ecosystems, allowing companies and DApps to build use cases at a scale currently impossible in these chains, such as massive tokenizing of real-world assets, or mainstream gaming beyond Play & Earn.
Can you elaborate on the interoperability aspect of LAOS and how it enables cross-application utility?
One of the problems of using the same NFT in different applications is that the representation and the properties of such an asset in each application will be different. Despite this, on-chain, a user will only be able to see the properties of the original application that minted that asset.Using the Decentralized Asset Metadata Extension feature of LAOS, applications can “extend” existing assets existing in any chain with the properties and visual representation that this asset will have in their application in a decentralized and permissionless manner.
This enables any actor to permissionlessly extend what an NFT describes, irrespective of its originating blockchain, and evolve it over time, opening a new plethora of use cases, including usage of assets across different DApps, managing copyright reporting, and the permissionless issuance of valuations about Real World Assets.
What are some real-world use cases for LAOS, as mentioned in the project details?
Gaming.
Until recently, permitting in-game item trading with real currency has been legally difficult – it requires the game to acquire a banking license. But Web3 infrastructure solves this by abstracting the legal responsibility of “being a bank” to the blockchain. As a result, more and more games are experimenting with tokenizing their items. LAOS allows these items to be tokenized en-masse, and gifted, rewarded, or sold to any player in a permissionless manner. We will start to see real “player-driven” economies emerge, where almost every item in the game is tokenized and these assets are valued by their utility vs. speculation. See a deep dive on LAOS gaming use cases.
NFT Collectibles.
Save money by minting dynamic NFT collections on mature ecosystems, such as Ethereum and Polygon, at a fraction of the cost. All assets are regular ERC-721s, and tradable in regular marketplaces such as Opensea. Breathe new life into existing collections by updating their metadata – works for new collections and all existing collections on EVM chains. See a deep dive on LAOS digital collectibles use cases.
Tokenization of all Real-World Assets (RWAs), not just high net worth assets.
So far, tokenization has focused on high net worth assets (like real-estate), because the relatively high cost of tokenizing such an asset is worth it (for example, minting an asset on Ethereum costs anything up to $50 at the moment). Yet there are many different categories of assets that make sense to be tokenized (e.g. invoices, certificates, supply-chain receipts etc.), but the cost of this tokenization makes it prohibitive – for example, you’re not going to spend $50 to tokenize a $45 invoice. LAOS Network solves this problem by permitting users to mint the exact same asset on Ethereum, for fractions of a cent, rather than $50. This opens up an entire goldmine of new use-cases.
How does LAOS utilize the Polkadot ecosystem, and what benefits does it provide?
Being part of the Polkadot ecosystem has several advantages for LAOS, namely:
Allows LAOS to be secured from day 1
Allows the LAOS token holders to use services provided by other chains in the ecosystem (e.g. use secure DEXs that already have liquidity)
Allows the LAOS Network to focus on its core functionalities without having to provide a whole suite of products that users need (DEXs, ERC20 …)
Could you explain the significance of LAOS being built with the guidance of the Substrate Builders Program?
Participation in the Substrate Builders Program has been crucial for LAOS Network, ensuring external validation of its technical aspects and adherence to best practices and tools within the Polkadot ecosystem. It has also provided valuable contacts within the ecosystem to make sure that the LAOS Network is as integrated and used as possible.
How does LAOS plan to engage with and support its community, particularly developers?
LAOS has a Developer focused documentation and open-sourced Github repository.
Apart from that, there is an active community on Discord, Telegram and Twitter with project members that will be able to answer any questions users or developers might have.Finally, in order to incentivize more developers to use LAOS, a grants program is also available. Since using LAOS bridgeless minting, the developers can keep building in their desired ecosystems, the LAOS grants program is compatible with other grants from other chains that they might have. Apart from that, Freeverse (the company behind LAOS) is also incentivizing its existing clients to migrate to LAOS.
What steps are involved in participating in the LAOS Network’s Crowdloan?
To participate in the LAOS Network’s crowdloan, follow these steps once it’s live:
Ensure you have DOT tokens in a compatible wallet listed here.
Contribute to the crowdloan directly through your wallet or via Polkadot.js.
You can monitor the progress of the crowdloan as well as finding participation links at parachains.info/auctions
Some weeks after the crowdloan concludes the chain will start producing blocks, then you will be able to visit https://laosnetwork.io/crowdloan to link your EVM address and start claiming your rewards, which will vest over 96 weeks.
