Proposal to Switch Agoric Gas Token to BLD from IST

Governance
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This is a discussion for the specifics of an upgrade to switch the gas/fee token of Agoric network from IST to BLD, as approved by a signaling vote in proposal 93. During the discussion period the changes will be tested, and then the vote to apply the specific changes will be posted.

Why now

Agoric’s Orchestration layer lets contracts coordinate multi‑step, cross‑chain workflows—think Fast USDC moving dollars across chains in under a minute and then auto‑deploying them in a single click. All of that logic already runs on BLD‑secured validators, so using BLD for gas keeps the economic loop tight.

This contributes momentum toward a BLD‑centric economy. BLD is already the security, staking, and governance backbone of the chain. Aligning the fee market with the staking token reinforces validator incentives and simplifies the token story for new users.

This also aligns with and supports the recent signaling proposal to sunset Inter Protocol, which recommended “replacing IST with BLD in protocol‑level roles (gas fees, Swingset execution, wallet provisioning).”

Desired Benefits

Category Impact
User Experience Users only need to hold one liquid token—BLD—for staking, voting, and paying gas. Onboarding from exchanges that list BLD becomes a single‑asset journey, improving first‑time‑user conversion
Developer UX One‑token mental model: deploy contracts, pay gas, and receive rewards all in BLD.
Economic Benefits Improves alignment with Orchestration contracts, and future fees.
Operational Simplicity Wallets, explorers, faucets, and relayers can drop IST handling, reducing friction for new integrations.

Potential Concerns and Mitigations

Gas‑price volatility may be a concern and will need to be monitored immediately after the transition.

Effect on current IST holders: The Inter Protocol wind‑down plan already covers vault unwinding, PSM exits, and a 60‑day grace period; the community can further ease the transition by providing liquidity incentives on DEX pools.

Validator liquidity (commission in BLD vs. IST): Because validators already receive staking rewards in BLD, changing commission payments from IST to BLD is operationally neutral for them.

Planned Changes

The essential changes in order to use BLD for all fees and gas are:

  • Cosmos Gas Fees: Remove IST as a selectable gas token in front ends like Keplr; enforce BLD via validator config (app.toml minimum-gas-prices)
  • Swingset Fees: Switch execution fee for wallet actions and code bundle uploads from IST to BLD via fee_unit_price param update (cosmos gov proposal)
  • Wallet Auto-Provisioning: Change auto-provisioning fee from 1 IST to 10 BLD (in the same gov proposal as the Swingset fee change).
  • Wallet Initial Funding: Update initial 0.25 IST grant to BLD via core eval + EC vote (UI/CLI support pending) and fund the provision pool accordingly

Call for Community Feedback

  • Wallet & dApp builders: What integration work would switching to BLD entail for you?
  • Validators & node operators: Any objections to fee‑denom consolidation? For this, you should change the fee tokens you accept to only accept BLD.
  • Users holding IST: Aside from the sunset plan, what additional support would make this smoother?

Please share your questions, critiques, and ideas below.

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I don’t expect switch Agoric gas token will have impact on BLD in current situation on Agoric Blockchain.
I mean, that IST was Cosmos selectible gas fees token, but nobody choose it for that purpose. Switch wallet auto provision and swingset fees from IST to BLD also will not bring a lot.
Only network usage can help. BLD needs dapps and users, who will pay fees in these dapps. And it not happens in one day or one month.
Only what i can expect: less sell pressure on BLD as there is not more necessity to support IST project and spend BLD on it.

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I don’t get it. The token holders and validators already voted for IST sunsetting and yet we need another vote to make BLD the main gas token?

By sunsetting IST, BLD should automatically assigned as the main gas token. Furthermore, talking about gas volatility, following the success cases are simply the best solution. Look into Ethereum, Solana and etc.

We already expect BLD to become store of value and means of payment in near future. In order to do that we need to become a easy to develop platform for developers to engage in making dapps or have corporate partnerships.

If you again expect devs to just come and build, this will fail ultimately. @dtribble @antman

We need permissionless smart contract.

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I understand there are a lot of moving pieces here - the sunset Inter Protocol vote was a signaling vote (as mentioned in the beginning of the post) to ensure community alignment on this direction. The “yes” vote there means DCF, the Economics Committee, and Agoric Systems are taking the necessary steps to enact the wind down,

This discussion will lead to an on-chain proposal that will actually enact the chain upgrade to switch the gas token from IST to BLD. That vote will be to make the changes to the Agoric chain code if it passes.

While your points about a platform being easy to develop on are valid, we’re very much not expecting developers to come and build on Agoric at this time. I’m not sure if you saw the recent blog post about the new direction or read any of Dean’s messages or conversations on Discord or X about it, but Agoric Systems is focusing on delivering a first party application powered by the platform. We have open communication with some teams who want to leverage orchestration, and we had teams already building on the platform, but going forward we have a new, refined direction.

Just the past week we had an internal hackathon and it’s been really awesome (from my pov at least) to see what the teams built. Stay tuned for more from that!

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