Fetch.AI’s decentralised infrastructure utilises algorithms that bring the AI-based autonomous machine economy to life. As the Fetch.AI network grows, an increasing number of developers from major corporate companies and beyond will be coding and deploying Autonomous Economic Agents. These agents solve a wide range of problems for users by communicating, trading and collaborating across the Fetch.AI network.
The Fetch.AI (FET) token is used by agents to fund specific network functions and is an important means of incentivising good behaviour. Listed below are some examples of when the FET token comes into play on the Fetch.AI ecosystem.
Connecting agents to the network
Once a developer has built an agent it will need to be deployed on the network. To enable this, Fetch.AI tokens are deposited, a little like staking, giving the agent the right to operate in the network. The token is deposited to make it economically infeasible for bad actors to deploy malicious agents (due to the escalating cost).
Exchanging value between agents
When two agents have successfully connected, communicated and negotiated, one needs to pay the other for the data or service on offer. The FET token acts as the medium of exchange, allowing autonomous agents to exchange Fetch.AI tokens to acquire data, or services from other agents. Importantly, the token supports micro-payments of just a fraction of a cent. These micro-transactions are key to the autonomous machine to machine economy, in which a car may access a small piece of data from a sensor at a low financial cost.
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Accessing ledger-based AI/ML algorithms
The Fetch.AI network has a wide range of ‘primary’ AI & ML functionality embedded in the ledger itself. That’s why we refer to it as a ‘Smart Ledger’. Examples of primary algorithms include trust scores so agents know broader contextual prediction models and are aware of which agents they should do business with. Agents require a modest amount of tokens to access this core functionality.
Accessing the Fetch.AI digital world
The Fetch.AI system provides more than a ledger. The digital world is a vast space that represents the real world, but in a way machines can work with and interpret. Working within the digital world, agents can deliver even more value to their owners by finding more opportunities for value exchange. FET is used as a means for agents to pay for access.
For exchange into Fetch.AI’s operational fuel
Operation costs on the Fetch.AI network are decoupled from the Fetch.AI token in a similar way to that of “gas” on the Ethereum network. However, additional functionality is designed to increase the stability of such a fuel and to address issues associated with high and low-velocity economies. Fetch.AI’s operational fuel allows access to processor time for smart contract execution and other network derived services for agents.
As you can see from the examples, a thriving Fetch.AI network that includes many millions or, as we hope and expect in the future, billions of autonomous agents, requires a token to enable this new digital economy to function. The FET token is the currency agents use to pay for the benefits they derive from the wider network, whilst also providing a frictionless means of paying each other.
Members of the community will soon be able to experiment with the Fetch.AI test-network via our Network Participation App. This has been designed to be as easy to use as possible. Simply download it and sensors on your smartphone are transformed into Fetch.AI autonomous agents, operating on the test-network. This will provide opportunities to see the various uses of the FET token in action and will be possible when the Fetch.AI Token Generation Event occurs.
