CACAO is the native cryptocurrency of the Maya Protocol ecosystem, which includes the MAYAChain and AZTECChain blockchains. CACAO was chosen as the name because cacao was historically used as a medium of exchange by the Mayan people.
CACAO serves three key functions in the Maya protocol ecosystem:
- Liquidity - CACAO is pooled 50:50 with other assets in liquidity pools, allowing it to transmit purchasing power and provide liquidity incentives.
- Security - CACAO is used as a sybil-resistant mechanism, where nodes must commit a CACAO bond to participate in the network. This bond can be slashed if the node misbehaves, ensuring reliable service.
- Incentives - CACAO is used to pay transaction fees on the network and to provide rewards to liquidity providers.
The total supply of CACAO is 100 million tokens, with 90% distributed in a liquidity auction and the remaining 10% allocated to an impermanent loss protection treasury.
CACAO versus MAYA
The key differences between the CACAO and MAYA tokens in the Maya Protocol ecosystem are:
- Purpose:
- CACAO is the main utility token that powers the ecosystem, used for liquidity, security, and incentives.
- MAYA is a revenue share token that captures 10% of the protocol's fees, but does not grant any governance rights.
- Tradability:
- CACAO is actively traded and pooled within the Maya ecosystem.
- MAYA is not meant to be traded or pooled, and is intended to be held long-term by the community.
- Supply:
- CACAO has a total supply of 100 million tokens.
- MAYA has a total supply of 1 million tokens.
- Deterministic Value:
- CACAO's price is designed to have a deterministic value of 1x the total value locked (TVL) in the protocol, as it is paired 1:1 with other assets.
- MAYA's value is derived from capturing 10% of the protocol's fees, rather than having a deterministic price.
In summary, CACAO is the primary utility token that powers the Maya Protocol ecosystem, while MAYA is a revenue share token intended for long-term community ownership, without direct trading or governance rights.