Contents

• What is the Aragon network?
• ANT coin explained
• The Aragon story
• FAQs

You might know it as Aragon coin or you might know it as ANT coin but, either way, there is a good chance you will have heard about the cryptocurrency that is helping people make their DAO dreams come true. If you don’t know what it is, then we are here to tell you. 

Before we get into the details of what ANT coin is, though, we had better issue a word of warning. The ANT we are going to be talking about here is the cryptocurrency linked to the Aragon network. This is not to be confused with the Ant Network, which is based around a cryptomining phone app that, its creators claim, will allow users to help create a privacy-based social network.

There are some issues with the Ant Network but, as that is not what we are talking about here, we won't go into the details. We have tried to make contact with Ant Network but have not had a reply. Suffice to say, we would advise you to be extra careful if you want to invest in ANT coin. Make sure that you have got the right one – the one associated with Aragon, not the Ant Network.

With that out of the way, let us take a look at the ANT coin itself. But before we do that, we had better explain about the Aragon network.

What is the Aragon network?

The Aragon network is software used to set up and maintain decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) on the Ethereum blockchain.

DAOs are programs that have a built-in ability to help people manage their code. The original DAO was effectively closed in 2016 after hackers managed to exploit security weaknesses. This, in turn, led to the ethereum hard fork which created the ethereum classic cryptocurrency. However, the principle behind the original DAO – although, we hope, not its flaws – lives on and organisation such as Aragon, MakerDAO, MolochDAO and MetaCartel are helping establish DAOs as a valid concept once more.

What makes the Aragon network  special? The network’s whitepaper says: “The existing Aragon infrastructure enables users to create and manage organisations. Each Aragon organisation exists as a set of smart contracts that define the organisation's stakeholders and their associated rights and privileges. However, some rights and privileges require subjective constraints that cannot be encoded in a smart contract directly.

“The Aragon Court is a decentralised oracle protocol developed and maintained by the Aragon Network. The Aragon Court can be used by organisations, including the Aragon Network itself, to resolve subjective disputes with binary outcomes. When combined with the existing Aragon infrastructure, it enables an organisation to create Proposal Agreements that define subjective constraints on an organisation's operation and can be enforced by minority stakeholders.” 

In other words, Aragon has a system called the Aragon Court which allows users to resolve disputes that cannot be settled by smart contracts. 

It also has a framework called AragonOS which lets people raise funds, create incentives for the DAO’s users and make decisions regarding group participation. Any DAO on the Aragon network will have three features. These are:

ANT coin explained

As we have seen, the Aragon network offers people the chance to create their own DAOs. However, if we look at the network as a whole, it is logical to say that there will be times when decisions will have to be made that go across the entire system. This is where the Aragon coin, or ANT coin, comes in.

For example, it can be used in the Aragon Court dispute resolution process. In the court, a group of users, called jurors, hear the facts behind the dispute and make a decision based on those facts. Since these cases can take a long time to be heard and can involve some quite complex arguments, it might well make sense for the jurors to get some kind of compensation for their time and work. They get it via a payment in Aragon coin.

However, if you want to become a juror, then you will have to exchange your ANT coin for something else, called the ANJ token, which has to be either staked or locked into special contracts on the network. Owning ANJ allows you to serve as a juror and thus have the opportunity to earn more ANT.

Aragon coin holders can also have their say in a range of governance decisions relating to the network. This is probably not too much of a surprise, seeing as ANT is the Aragon network’s native token.

The Aragon story

The Aragon network, along with its sister organisations Aragon One and the Aragon Association, was founded in 2016 by Luis Ivan Cuende and Jorge Izquierdo, from Spain. They managed to raise 275,000 ether, worth around $25m, in 2017 through an initial coin offering (ICO) via the sale of ANT coin. Aragon itself started publicly on the Ethereum blockchain the following year.

Aragon kept developing, although Izquierdo resigned as the CEO of Aragon One, the business which builds services for the Aragon Network, in January 2021, citing concerns over the organisation’s governance. However, he still remains on the committee of the Aragon Association, which is a non-profit organisation that describes itself as “the legal steward of the Aragon project and … responsible for managing the funds raised in the Aragon Network Token sale”.

The other committee members are Cuende, who appeared in Forbes' “30 under 30” list of influential young people in 2016; the association’s executive director, Joe Charlesworth; and regular members Jordi Baylina and Stefano Bernadi. 

In 2020, Aragon launched Aragon v2, which, the organisation claimed, had the following advantages over the original version of the network.

At present, there are 39,609,522.81 ANT coin in circulation, out of a total supply of 39,609,524 Aragon coin. 

FAQs

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