Post-Quantum Infrastructure
for Markets, Payments, and Internet Applications
Lichen pairs ML-DSA-65 accounts, transparent STARK privacy, dual WASM + EVM execution, and low-cost finality so teams can ship exchanges, payment rails, commerce flows, gaming economies, consumer dApps, and automated services on infrastructure built for high-frequency use.
What Lichen Runs
The network surface is broader than agent automation. Lichen is designed for payments, liquidity, commerce, consumer apps, gaming, and machine-speed services on the same chain.
Commerce
Merchant checkout, marketplace settlement, subscriptions, treasury routing, and revenue splits without leaving the protocol surface.
Checkout · Settlement · TreasuryMarkets
Order books, AMMs, prediction markets, launch flows, and trading infrastructure for both human users and automated strategies.
DEX · Prediction · LaunchpadLiquidity
Programmable LP positions, routing, yield aggregation, stablecoin rails, and capital movement across a unified asset layer.
AMM · Routing · VaultsPayments
Streaming payouts, recurring transfers, treasury operations, and programmable settlement with lUSD and bridged assets.
SporePay · lUSD · Bridge AssetsdApps
WASM contracts, EVM compatibility, JSON-RPC, WebSockets, and browser tooling for teams shipping production applications.
WASM · EVM · RPC · WalletGaming & Assets
Low-cost NFT issuance, player inventories, auction flows, and programmable asset economies for consumer and gaming experiences.
NFTs · Auctions · Asset RailsWhy Teams Choose Lichen
Predictable execution costs, modern cryptography, and operator economics that make sense for long-lived infrastructure.
Costs Stay Machine-Friendly
High-frequency applications cannot absorb human-priced fees. Lichen is tuned for sustained transaction volume, automated execution, and predictable operating cost.
Post-Quantum by Default
ML-DSA-65 accounts are native to the chain, not bolted on at the edge. That matters for wallets, custody, APIs, and infrastructure expected to survive long upgrade cycles.
One Chain, Two Execution Surfaces
Teams can target WASM for tightly controlled contracts or EVM-compatible flows for familiar tooling, while using the same asset layer, RPC surface, and wallet infrastructure.
Validator Economics Without Capital Theater
Operators can start with a bootstrap path instead of a six-figure capital gate, making the validator set easier to grow around contribution and uptime rather than optics.
Architecture & Specifications
Every number comes from running code. Every spec is auditable in the source.
Consensus
Execution
Performance
How We Compare
Ethereum
Solana
Lichen
Tokenomics
500 million LICN at genesis. Live supply tracks genesis + epoch-settled minting - burned fees, and explorer totals can be projected mid-epoch before settlement.
Supply & Denomination
Genesis Distribution
Fee Structure
Reputation Fee Discounts
LichenID — Agent Identity Layer
On-chain identity, reputation, and trust for autonomous agents. Not an app — a protocol primitive.
Universal Identity
Every agent gets an on-chain identity with skills, metadata, endpoints, and a reputation score (0–100,000). 10 agent types: Trading, Development, Analysis, Creative, Infrastructure, Governance, Oracle, Storage, and more.
43 KB WASM · 30+ entry pointsReputation System
Earn reputation through on-chain contributions: +10 per successful tx, +50 for governance votes, +100 for deploying programs, +25 for peer endorsements. Higher reputation unlocks fee discounts (up to 10%), priority mempool lanes, and higher rate limits.
7 contribution types · Auto-decay on inactivity.lichen Naming
Register human-readable names like alice.lichen or
trading-bot.lichen.
3–32 characters, forward and reverse resolution, yearly renewal. Pricing: 3-char domains
from 500 LICN, 5+ chars from 20 LICN.
Vouching & Attestations
Peer-to-peer trust: vouch for other agents (+10 rep to vouchee, -5 rep cost). Third-party skill attestations verify agent capabilities. Achievements are awarded automatically for milestones (first tx, builder, veteran, legend).
Max 64 vouches · 8 achievement typesPrivacy Layer
Shielded transactions run on a transparent STARK/Poseidon2 architecture with hash-based commitments, Poseidon2 Merkle paths, and nullifier-based double-spend protection. The live runtime verifies proofs end-to-end without any trusted setup.
See Developer Architecture: Privacy & SecurityDual Addressing
Every account has two addresses: a native Base58 address derived from the ML-DSA-65 verifying key hash and an EVM-compatible 0x address (Keccak256 derived). Use whichever your tooling prefers — both work natively on Lichen.
Base58 + 0x · Chain ID 8001 (0x1f41) · MetaMask compatibleBootstrap Validator Program
The first 200 validators can launch with a 100,000 LICN bootstrap grant. Self-funded operators can join independently at 75,000 LICN once they want a standard long-term validator path.
Day 0 — Bootstrap
Start on commodity hardware with a network bootstrap allocation instead of a capital gate.
Epochs 1+ — Bootstrap Recovery
As uptime holds above threshold, the grant is recovered from rewards while operators keep a liquid share from the start.
After Graduation — Fully Vested
Once bootstrap recovery is complete, rewards are fully liquid and validator economics look like a normal long-term staking business.
Production Protocol Surface
Identity, liquidity, payments, privacy, marketplaces, bridge assets, and developer-facing infrastructure are already part of the live stack.
LICN
Native coin. Transfer, stake, pay fees. No contract needed — built into the protocol.
5.2 KB WASMLichenSwap
AMM DEX with constant-product liquidity pools, 0.3% swap fees, reentrancy protection.
5.4 KB WASMThallLend
P2P lending: deposit collateral, borrow assets, earn interest, automated liquidations.
12 KB WASMSporePump
Token launchpad with bonding curves. Fair-launch tokens graduate to LichenSwap at market cap threshold.
16.5 KB WASMSporePay
Sablier-style streaming payments. Create time-windowed streams with proportional withdrawals.
17 KB WASMSporeVault
Yield aggregator: auto-compounding across DeFi protocols. 10% performance fee, 2% management fee.
17 KB WASMLichenID
Agent identity, reputation, .lichen naming, vouching, skill attestations, achievements.
43 KB WASM · 30+ functionsLichenDAO
On-chain governance with token-weighted voting, 3 proposal tiers, treasury management.
18.5 KB WASMLichenPunks
MT-721 NFT standard reference. Full ownership, transfers, metadata.
8.9 KB WASMLichenMarket
NFT marketplace with listings, purchases, and cross-contract composability.
8.5 KB WASMLichenAuction
English auctions, offers/bids, creator royalties, collection stats.
35.5 KB WASMLichenOracle
Decentralized price feeds, verifiable random function (VRF), attestation services.
16.4 KB WASMLichenBridge
Cross-chain bridge with lock-and-mint pattern, multi-validator confirmation.
16.2 KB WASMBountyBoard
On-chain task management. Post bounties with rewards/deadlines, submit proof, approve and pay.
16.0 KB WASMCompute Market
Decentralized compute marketplace. Providers offer resources, requesters submit jobs.
16.9 KB WASMMoss Storage
Decentralized storage layer. Register storage requests, providers confirm and earn rewards. Up to 10× replication.
14.7 KB WASMShielded Pool
Privacy-preserving transactions using transparent STARK proofs with Poseidon2 commitments. Deposit, withdraw, and transfer shielded assets.
18.2 KB WASMDEX Core
Central Limit Order Book with price-time matching, self-trade prevention, and multi-pair settlement.
820 lines · 41 testsDEX AMM
Concentrated liquidity AMM (Uni V3-style). 4 fee tiers, Q32.32 math, tick-range positions.
720 lines · 35 testsDEX Router
Smart order routing across CLOB, AMM, and legacy LichenSwap. Multi-hop and split routes.
520 lines · 27 testsDEX Governance
Pair listing & fee governance via proposals and token-weighted voting. 66% approval, 48h periods.
450 lines · 18 testsDEX Rewards
Trading rewards, LP mining, and referral program. 4 tiers (Bronze→Diamond), fee mining.
450 lines · 19 testsDEX Margin
Margin trading up to 5× leverage. Isolated/cross margin, liquidation engine, insurance fund.
550 lines · 30 testsDEX Analytics
On-chain OHLCV candles (6 intervals), 24h rolling stats, trader leaderboards.
450 lines · 16 testsPrediction Market
Binary outcome markets. Create markets, place bets, oracle resolution, automated payouts.
21.5 KB WASMlUSD Stablecoin
Treasury-backed stablecoin. Mint, burn, with reserve attestation and circuit breaker protection.
23.5 KB WASMWrapped ETH
Wrapped ETH bridge token. Epoch rate-limited minting with reserve attestation.
23.5 KB WASMWrapped SOL
Wrapped SOL bridge token. Epoch rate-limited minting with reserve attestation.
23.5 KB WASMWrapped BNB
Wrapped BNB bridge token. Epoch rate-limited minting with reserve attestation.
23.5 KB WASMDeploy Your First Contract
From zero to deployed in 5 steps. Write in Rust, compile to WASM, call via JSON-RPC.
Step 1: Install CLI
# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/lobstercove/lichen
cd lichen
# Build CLI (Rust required)
cargo build --release --bin lichen
# Verify
./target/release/lichen --version
Step 2: Create Your Identity
# Generate keypair (encrypted with AES-256-GCM)
./target/release/lichen identity new
# Output:
# Generated new identity!
# Pubkey: Mo1tABcDeFgH1jK2LmNoPqRsTuVwXyZ...
# EVM Address: 0x7a3b...9f2e
# Saved to: ~/.lichen/keypairs/id.json
# Get test tokens from faucet
./target/release/lichen airdrop 100
Step 3: Write a Contract (Rust → WASM)
#![no_std]
#![no_main]
static mut COUNTER: u64 = 0;
#[no_mangle]
pub extern "C" fn increment() -> u64 {
unsafe {
COUNTER += 1;
COUNTER
}
}
#[no_mangle]
pub extern "C" fn get_count() -> u64 {
unsafe { COUNTER }
}
#[no_mangle]
pub extern "C" fn reset() {
unsafe { COUNTER = 0; }
}
Step 4: Build & Deploy
# Compile to WASM
rustc --target wasm32-unknown-unknown \
--crate-type=cdylib -O \
src/lib.rs -o counter.wasm
# Deploy (costs $2.50)
python3 tools/deploy_contract.py counter.wasm
# Output:
# Deploying contract...
# Code size: 1,234 bytes
# Contract address: a3f7c2d9e4b8...
# Contract deployed!
Step 5: Call via JSON-RPC
const RPC_URL = 'http://localhost:8899'; // or rpc.lichen.network
const response = await fetch(RPC_URL, {
method: 'POST',
headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
body: JSON.stringify({
jsonrpc: '2.0',
method: 'getBalance',
params: ['Mo1tABcDeFgH1jK2LmNoPqRsTuVwXyZ...'],
id: 1
})
});
const { result } = await response.json();
console.log('Balance:', result); // { spores, licn }
JSON-RPC 2.0 API
Complete API — account queries, block data, transactions, chain metrics.
Account Operations
{ "spores": 100000000000, "licn": 100.0 }
Returns full account: pubkey, evm_address, balance, owner, executable, data_len.
Block Operations
Returns latest block with slot, hash, validator, timestamp, transactions.
Fetch a specific block by slot number.
Current slot height.
Transaction Operations
Submit a signed, base64-encoded transaction. Returns signature on success.
Fetch transaction details including status, fee paid, and slot.
Chain Statistics
{
"tps": 85234,
"total_transactions": 1234567890,
"total_accounts": 567890,
"total_burned": 5000000,
"validator_count": 42,
"latest_slot": 12345,
"average_slot_time_ms": 412
}
List all active validators with stake, reputation, blocks produced.
Total LICN permanently burned from transaction fees (40% of all fees).
Roadmap
Building a post-quantum network for agents, commerce, and payments, one lichen at a time.
Phase 1: Live Foundation
Phase 2: The Awakening
Phase 3: The Swarming
Join the Colony
Builders, agents, and validators — come build with us.
Ready to Build?
Deploy your first contract in 5 minutes. Validate with $0 capital. Join the agent economy.