What is Picasso (PICA)? All infomation about Picasso

# What is Picasso (PICA)?

Composable Finance’s L1, Picasso, is the infrastructure layer pioneering interoperable DeFi solutions. Picasso plays a fundamental role in maximizing the potential of Kusama and Polkadot by providing cross-chain DeFi infrastructure and trustless bridging solutions through the extension of the Inter-blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC) beyond the Cosmos ecosystem. In doing so, Picasso is able to act as the infrastructure layer enabling interoperable DeFi through which developers can pioneer cross-chain smart contracts with Composable’s Cross-chain Virtual Machine (XCVM). The XCVM is able to leverage the aforementioned infrastructure and communication protocols to facilitate asset transfers and cross-chain function calls between ecosystems connected to Picasso.

# What makes Picasso unique?

## Security
As a parachain connected to the Kusama Network, Picasso benefits from Kusama’s “shared security model”. The shared security model is unique to the Kusama and Polkadot ecosystems. Parachains (sovereign, highly customizable, layer 1 blockchains) are required to lease a connection to one of the 2 relay chains by locking either KSM or DOT depending on the relay chain they wish to connect to. Commonly, parachain teams will source these tokens from their communities in return for token allocations in what is referred to as a crowdloan. Parachain leases last for ~1 year on Kusama or ~2 years on Polkadot, at the end of which the participating community members receive their underlying KSM/DOT in addition to their parachain token allocations.

Over the course of this lease period, parachain teams such as Picasso benefit from the shared security of the Relay Chain. Meaning that all parachains who secure a slot to either Kusama or Polkadot benefit from the economic security provided by the Relay Chain’s validators. Therefore, as a parachain connected to the Kusama Relay Chain, Picasso benefits from Kusama’s extensive validator set and is guaranteed that any other parachain on Kusama shares the same degree of security.

## Interoperability
Picasso exists as the only CosmWasm and IBC enabled parachain. Thus, Picasso will be able to seamlessly integrate with other parachains as well as IBC enabled blockchains in the Cosmos ecosystem. As the first instance of an IBC implementation outside of the Cosmos ecosystem, novel strategies can now be built which leverage the best of Substrate and Cosmos SDK blockchains. This is made possible through some key innovations by Picasso’s bridging team.

In addition to being the first IBC enabled parachain, Picasso still benefits from the interoperability inherent to all parachains connected to Kusama or Polkadot. Parachains connected to the same Relay Chain may utilize the Cross-Consensus Message Format (XCM) as a framework to communicate with each other. The actual passing of messages between parachains is done through use of Cross-Chain Message Passing (XCMP) which allows for functionality such as asset transferals or cross-chain smart contract calls.

## Pallets
The Substrate blockchain development framework allows for parachain teams such as Picasso to quickly bootstrap their own sovereign layer 1 blockchains through utilization of core building blocks provided in the form of pallets by the Parity team (core developers of Polkadot and Kusama). You can think of pallets as Lego bricks which can be stacked together in different arrangements to form highly customizable runtime environments. With Substrate, developers can choose to reuse fundamental and proven pallets where possible, or choose to create their own pallets to add new functionality when necessary.

Some examples of pallets which have been developed for deployment on Picasso are:

* **Centauri** - the first extension of IBC beyond the Cosmos ecosystem. Centauri started as a bridge between Picasso <> Cosmos but has developed into a comprehensive bridging solution which aims to bring IBC to all light-client capable blockchains. Currently the following IBC bridges are in the works (in order of estimated time until completion):

* Kusama <> Polkadot
* Picasso <> Cosmos
* Picasso <> NEAR
* Cosmos <> Picasso <> NEAR

* **Apollo** - a permissionless and MEV resistant oracle solution, custom built for usage on Picasso
* **Pablo** - the native automated market maker (AMM) and decentralized exchange (DEX) of Picasso. Pablo utilizes novel bonding mechanisms, protocol-owned-liquidity, and more to provide a single interface for many commonly used decentralized financial tools. As it leverages infrastructure such as Apollo and Cubic, Pablo is able to support cross-chain asset pairings.

## The XCVM and cross-chain smart contracts
Composable’s Cross-chain Virtual Machine is able to leverage the pallets above to facilitate the creation of non-custodial, natively cross-chain smart contracts. The XCVM serves as a top layer orchestration layer, capable of calling into existing applications and pallets across multiple ecosystems asynchronously. XCVM applications will be deployable from any ecosystem housing the necessary satellite contracts and interpreter instances. You can read more about the XCVM by visiting Composable’s product documentation.

# PICA token use cases

Positioned at the center of a cross-chain DeFi hub, the PICA token serves many purposes on Picasso.

* **Network usage** - as the utility token of Picasso, PICA is fundamental for; gas payments, cross-chain bridging fees on Centauri, and CosmWasm smart contracts.
* **Oracle staking** - as Picasso hosts its own permissionless oracle solution, users can choose to run their own oracle and collect rewards by providing a PICA stake.
* **Collator staking** - as with most proof-of-stake networks, collators are required to put down a stake in order to produce blocks on our parachain. Collators are then rewarded with 25% of the fees collected on Picasso
* **xPICA (Financial NFTs)** - PICA can be staked for xPICA, which is a locked time-weighted staking position minted as a tradeable financial NFT. The benefits of xPICA being increased rewards and governance power relative to the lock period.
* **Primary DEX pairing** - as Picasso hosts its own native DEX, Pablo, the PICA token may be utilized as a base-pair for many liquidity pools.
* **Governance** - following the completion of Release 1 of Picasso’s phased release, sudo privileges will be dropped and Picasso will transition to an on-chain democracy where any token holder is able to submit proposals and vote on referenda.
* **Treasury direction** - 18% of Picasso’s genesis supply has been allocated to the Picasso treasury, which will be directed by Picasso token holders. In addition to the 18% of Picasso’s total supply, 75% of network fees will also flow into this fund.
* **Ecosystem growth incentives** - holders and stakers of PICA could also become eligible for airdrops of new protocols deploying in the Picasso ecosystem.

# Where can you buy PICA?
Trading will first commence on Pablo, the native DEX of the Picasso parachain. At this time you may expect to see trading pairs such as USDT/KSM, PICA/USDT, and PICA/KSM.


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