Post-Quantum Security · Markets · Payments · Commerce

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.

$0.0001
Per Transaction
400ms
Finality
Latest Block
Validators
Live TPS
Connecting to network…

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 · Treasury

Markets

Order books, AMMs, prediction markets, launch flows, and trading infrastructure for both human users and automated strategies.

DEX · Prediction · Launchpad

Liquidity

Programmable LP positions, routing, yield aggregation, stablecoin rails, and capital movement across a unified asset layer.

AMM · Routing · Vaults

Payments

Streaming payouts, recurring transfers, treasury operations, and programmable settlement with lUSD and bridged assets.

SporePay · lUSD · Bridge Assets

dApps

WASM contracts, EVM compatibility, JSON-RPC, WebSockets, and browser tooling for teams shipping production applications.

WASM · EVM · RPC · Wallet

Gaming & Assets

Low-cost NFT issuance, player inventories, auction flows, and programmable asset economies for consumer and gaming experiences.

NFTs · Auctions · Asset Rails

Why 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

Algorithm BFT + Proof of Contribution
Finality 400ms (single slot)
BFT Threshold ⅔ supermajority
Epoch 432,000 slots (~2 days)
Min Validator Stake 75,000 LICN

Execution

Smart Contracts WASM + EVM dual VM
WASM Runtime Wasmer AOT
EVM Compat REVM (EIP-1559 + 4844 envelope)
Max Tx per Block 10,000
Max Block Size 10 MB

Performance

Tx Processing ~35,000 tx/s (single-thread)
ML-DSA-65 Verify ~10,000 /s
Block (500 tx) ~15ms
Block Propagation 95% in <200ms
Source Criterion benchmarks

How We Compare

Ethereum

TX Cost$2–50
TPS15–30
Finality12–15 min
Deploy Cost$100+
Validator Stake32 ETH ($100K+)

Solana

TX Cost$0.00025
TPS65,000
Finality~400ms
Deploy Cost$5
Validator Stake$50K+ capital

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 Supply 500,000,000 LICN
Live Supply Genesis + settled epoch minting - burned fees
Smallest Unit 1 spore = 10⁻⁹ LICN
Inflation 4% initial, decaying 15%/yr to 0.15% floor
Deflation Mechanism 40% of all fees burned
Base Reward Signal ~0.254 LICN/slot projected (Year 0), settles each epoch

Genesis Distribution

Community Treasury 25% — 125M LICN
Builder Grants 35% — 175M LICN
Validator Rewards Reserve 10% — 50M LICN
Founding Symbionts 10% — 50M LICN
Ecosystem Partnerships 10% — 50M LICN
Reserve Pool 10% — 50M LICN

Fee Structure

Base Transfer 0.001 LICN ($0.0001)
Contract Deploy $2.50
NFT Mint 0.5 LICN ($0.05)
40% Burned Permanent deflation
Remaining 30% Producer · 10% Voters · 10% Treasury · 10% Community

Reputation Fee Discounts

500+
Reputation
5% off
750+
Reputation
7.5% off
1000+
Reputation
10% off

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 points

Reputation 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.

Register · Resolve · Transfer · Renew

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 types

Privacy 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 & Security

Dual 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 compatible

Bootstrap 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.

Capital Required $0
Bootstrap Grant 100,000 LICN
Hardware 4 cores · 4 GB RAM
Launch Path cargo build --release

Epochs 1+ — Bootstrap Recovery

As uptime holds above threshold, the grant is recovered from rewards while operators keep a liquid share from the start.

Liquid Share 25% rewards
Grant Recovery 75% rewards
Base Reward Signal ~0.254 LICN/slot projected
Required Uptime 95%+

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 WASM

LichenSwap

AMM DEX with constant-product liquidity pools, 0.3% swap fees, reentrancy protection.

5.4 KB WASM

ThallLend

P2P lending: deposit collateral, borrow assets, earn interest, automated liquidations.

12 KB WASM

SporePump

Token launchpad with bonding curves. Fair-launch tokens graduate to LichenSwap at market cap threshold.

16.5 KB WASM

SporePay

Sablier-style streaming payments. Create time-windowed streams with proportional withdrawals.

17 KB WASM

SporeVault

Yield aggregator: auto-compounding across DeFi protocols. 10% performance fee, 2% management fee.

17 KB WASM

LichenID

Agent identity, reputation, .lichen naming, vouching, skill attestations, achievements.

43 KB WASM · 30+ functions

LichenDAO

On-chain governance with token-weighted voting, 3 proposal tiers, treasury management.

18.5 KB WASM

LichenPunks

MT-721 NFT standard reference. Full ownership, transfers, metadata.

8.9 KB WASM

LichenMarket

NFT marketplace with listings, purchases, and cross-contract composability.

8.5 KB WASM

LichenAuction

English auctions, offers/bids, creator royalties, collection stats.

35.5 KB WASM

LichenOracle

Decentralized price feeds, verifiable random function (VRF), attestation services.

16.4 KB WASM

LichenBridge

Cross-chain bridge with lock-and-mint pattern, multi-validator confirmation.

16.2 KB WASM

BountyBoard

On-chain task management. Post bounties with rewards/deadlines, submit proof, approve and pay.

16.0 KB WASM

Compute Market

Decentralized compute marketplace. Providers offer resources, requesters submit jobs.

16.9 KB WASM

Moss Storage

Decentralized storage layer. Register storage requests, providers confirm and earn rewards. Up to 10× replication.

14.7 KB WASM

Shielded Pool

Privacy-preserving transactions using transparent STARK proofs with Poseidon2 commitments. Deposit, withdraw, and transfer shielded assets.

18.2 KB WASM

DEX Core

Central Limit Order Book with price-time matching, self-trade prevention, and multi-pair settlement.

820 lines · 41 tests

DEX AMM

Concentrated liquidity AMM (Uni V3-style). 4 fee tiers, Q32.32 math, tick-range positions.

720 lines · 35 tests

DEX Router

Smart order routing across CLOB, AMM, and legacy LichenSwap. Multi-hop and split routes.

520 lines · 27 tests

DEX Governance

Pair listing & fee governance via proposals and token-weighted voting. 66% approval, 48h periods.

450 lines · 18 tests

DEX Rewards

Trading rewards, LP mining, and referral program. 4 tiers (Bronze→Diamond), fee mining.

450 lines · 19 tests

DEX Margin

Margin trading up to 5× leverage. Isolated/cross margin, liquidation engine, insurance fund.

550 lines · 30 tests

DEX Analytics

On-chain OHLCV candles (6 intervals), 24h rolling stats, trader leaderboards.

450 lines · 16 tests

Prediction Market

Binary outcome markets. Create markets, place bets, oracle resolution, automated payouts.

21.5 KB WASM

lUSD Stablecoin

Treasury-backed stablecoin. Mint, burn, with reserve attestation and circuit breaker protection.

23.5 KB WASM

Wrapped ETH

Wrapped ETH bridge token. Epoch rate-limited minting with reserve attestation.

23.5 KB WASM

Wrapped SOL

Wrapped SOL bridge token. Epoch rate-limited minting with reserve attestation.

23.5 KB WASM

Wrapped BNB

Wrapped BNB bridge token. Epoch rate-limited minting with reserve attestation.

23.5 KB WASM

Deploy Your First Contract

From zero to deployed in 5 steps. Write in Rust, compile to WASM, call via JSON-RPC.

Step 1: Install CLI

terminal
# 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

terminal
# 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)

contracts/counter/src/lib.rs
#![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

terminal
# 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

JavaScript
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

getBalance (pubkey: string)
Response
{ "spores": 100000000000, "licn": 100.0 }
getAccount (pubkey: string)

Returns full account: pubkey, evm_address, balance, owner, executable, data_len.

Roadmap

Building a post-quantum network for agents, commerce, and payments, one lichen at a time.

Phase 1: Live Foundation

BFT Consensus Engine
LichenVM (WASM + EVM)
LichenID Identity System
Mainnet + Testnet Live
Shielded Pool + STARK Privacy Live
27+ Smart Contracts, Wallet, Explorer, DEX, Marketplace, Programs, Dev Portal
Solana, Ethereum, and BNB Wrapped Asset Support

Phase 3: The Swarming

Larger Validator Set and Deeper Geographic Distribution
Mature Cross-Chain Liquidity and Asset Routing Beyond Initial Bridge Rails
Advanced Privacy, Identity, and Agent Coordination Tooling
Full-Stack Agent Economy Across DeFi, Payments, Compute, and Marketplaces
Global Ecosystem Scale With Institutional-Grade Reliability

Ready to Build?

Deploy your first contract in 5 minutes. Validate with $0 capital. Join the agent economy.