DIGITAL COOPERATIVE

PROTOCOL

WHITE
PAPER
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EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
AGRI10X DCP will be an industry-specific protocol meant for
agriculture and allied sectors, which will integrate the entire
agricultural value chain. This entire process will be divided into
modules that will enable stakeholders across the industry to
participate either partially or completely across the value chain.

These stakeholders could be established enterprises, start-ups, or

small-scale cooperative societies/producer organizations, farmers,
traders, financial institutions, etc. An established player can opt for
building their end-to-end platform on the protocol, or a fertilizer
company can just choose to create a platform for selling farm
inputs.

For farmers and suppliers, the protocol will facilitate services like
quality control, farm inputs, advisory, credit, insurance, and weather
information. For traders, the protocol can extend services like
information sourcing, global price discovery, logistics, and trade
financing.

The DCP will support oracles on the platform. In a blockchain,

oracles are the third-party enabled services (generally APIs) that
allow the blockchain to connect with the off-chain service providers.
This protocol will support traceability across the entire supply chain
for seeds, inputs, and final commodities. This will also help in
quality control and waste management across the process.

The value chain in agricultural industries works in a virtually similar

process and hence players across the globe can participate with
their platforms on the protocol. The agricultural industry has been
developing with staggering growth for centuries, mainly across
developing countries. Bringing a digital protocol in the current
scenario will boost the growth of the entire industry and its
stakeholders.
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INTRODUCTION

Agri10x DCP will be a protocol which is designed to integrate the

entire agricultural value chain. The protocol will be divided in
multiple modules according to the different stages in the value
chain. The protocol will enable multiple enterprises to participate at
the different levels of the agricultural supply chain. These
enterprises can choose to participate in the value chain as per their
capabilities.

With about 1.5 billion hectares (11% of the total land area) of land
being cultivated globally every year, the agricultural production
accounts for more than USD 5 Trillion in value. A very miniscule part
of it has been being traded online even after the strong reach of
internet globally.

This potential can be tapped, and efficient systems can be built

over AGRI10X protocol which will cater to more than a billion
people worldwide. With the current platform being a proven use
case for the protocol, there can be multiple similar platforms that
can be hosted with the same set of rules. The protocol gives
enough flexibility to businesses and the same situation can thus be
scaled at a global level.
3

BLOCKCHAIN
PROTOCOL

Protocols are a set of defined rules in networking to enable

different systems to communicate between each other as well as
format and process data effectively. These protocols act as a
common language between multiple systems irrespective of them
using different hardware or software. Internet Protocol is one of the
most popularly used protocols worldwide today, where it connects
billions of systems together and creates a uniqueness for each
system through an IP address. (Cloudflare, n.d.)

The devices which communicate between each other using a

protocol have well defined formats to exchange information
between them. Each transmission has an exact attributed meaning
and is intended to display a specific piece of information. These
definitions are set by the protocol which is being used by the
respective systems.

A blockchain is a list of records (also called blocks) which are linked

together through cryptography. Each block consists of a cryptic
hash code, a timestamp and the data of transaction that led to
origin of that block. As the newest block contains the data related
to the previous block, each new block reinforces the chain of these
blocks. Again, this data is spread throughout multiple decentralized
devices which attributes to its security.
4

BLOCKCHAIN
PROTOCOL
In a blockchain, a protocol is a set of rules which is agreed upon
by all participating nodes/peers in the network. The major rules
that define any blockchain network are following:

I. A systemic approach for validating and governing

transactions ii.
II. An algorithm required to define the communicating
mechanism for participating nodes
III. Application programming interface, in some cases to build
or connect programs
Basically, in a blockchain network, the common rules for
communication within the network is referred to as the protocol.
(DevCon, 2018)

Process Program Product Platform Protocol

The blockchain protocol is the ultimate scalable technology

which enables a vast number of processes to take place at the
same time. The protocol can host multiple platforms which can
in turn allow multiple products to work in tandem. This means
that the DCP offered by AGRI10X will allow thousands of
different iterations of the value chain processes in the
agricultural value chain to run at the same time. This will allow
numerous innovations in the agricultural industry and will be
largely beneficial to the farmers, traders, and other end
stakeholders.
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MODULE
LAYERS
The DCP will have multiple different modules based on the
processes in the agricultural value chain. These modules will have
their specific activity-based approach in solving issues and creating
solutions for each stage. These layers will cover the entire end-to-
end process from the producer to the consumer.

Following will be the module layers in the Digital Cooperative

Protocol.

1. KYC Module: This will be one of the most crucial modules

which will enable verification of each and every stakeholder on
the platform. The verification will enable these stakeholders to
avail services across other modules and the companies to get
valid consumer base. KYC module will also be very important to
integrate fintech with the protocol where multiple financial
institutions can participate.

2. Producer Module: This module will be built for the

supplier/producer/seller of a commodity. This will enable them
to list their product on the platform and make it available for
the entire ecosystem to transact with. Similarly, the OEMs of
fertilizers, seeds and other agricultural inputs can also build
their own solution through this module and sell their products.

3. Verification/QC Module: Agricultural commodities vary

significantly with a slight change in their production or genetic
factors. This means that to attribute a price to a commodity,
one should have proper verification and quality control of that
specific supply. Enterprises excelling in quality assurance can
build their own solutions over this module.
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MODULE
LAYERS
4. Marketplace Module: This module will enable the firms to build
customized marketplaces for the sellers to sell their products.
This platform will connect farmers and sellers and will enable
them to buy and sell at their convenience.

5. Buyer Module: The module for buyers will enable them to

interact with the different marketplaces and other stakeholders
in the ecosystem. This module will allow them to make
transactions on the platform with other sellers through the
marketplace module.

6. Warehouse Module: Agricultural commodities require storage

to maintain supply during the non-production season.
Warehouses play an important role in the supply and demand
balance of these commodities. This will allow the warehouses
to offer storage solutions to producers to store their products.

7. Logistics Module: This module will allow the different players in

the ecosystem to transfer the goods/products transacted
through the different channels/modules. This module is
essential to bridge the supply gap across the entire value chain.

8. Fintech Module: The module for fintech services will allow the
entire ecosystem to avail services like credit, insurance, peer-to-
peer lending, digital wallets, etc. This module will fulfil the
capital requirements of different stakeholders across the
ecosystem.
 DCP
7

MODULE
FUNCTIONALITIES
The following will be the functionalities of the Digital Cooperative
Protocol mechanism.

Structure
Decentralised or Semi Federated Organisation structure. The
Organisation can be created and deployed with the set of rules of
the decentralised or federated structure.

Identity
User can be enrolled/tagged/attached with the departments as per
the services availed within the DCP.

Ownership
Ownership of the Organisation is autonomous or semi-autonomous
as per the structure of the Organisation.

Stakeholders
Stakeholders are defined as per the ownership and business value-
chain.

Finance
The transactions between the stakeholders and users. New project

New Project Funds

Cashflow management and Capital raise to maintain and build a
new vertical of value-chain.

Payouts
Vendor management and stakeholder or user related payments.
 DCP
8

MODULE
FUNCTIONALITIES
Value-chain segmentation and user mode.
Value-chain Functionality User type User mode
Farm Inputs Organisation Multiple
Individual Single

Farm Equipment Organisation Multiple

Pre-harvest Individual Single

Advisory Organisation Multiple

Individual Single

Supply Organisation Multiple

Individual(Farmer) Single

Demand Organisation Multiple

Post harvest
Individual(Farmer) Single

Logistics Organisation Multiple

Individual Single

Banking Organisation Multiple

Finance

Insurance Organisation Multiple

9

DCP
GOVERNANCE
The Digital Cooperative Protocol will have its own
governance process at different stages. This will
enable a consistent decision making procedure on the
protocol and will create a fair playing ground for the
enterprises from all sectors of the agricultural industry.

The DCP governance will be community driven in its

core, with the similarities with on-chain governance
model. Any update will be suggested by the protocol
community, will be discussed in the forums and then a
proper voting process will take place. Any update will
happen only after the community reaches a majority
consensus in its voting process.

This governance will also define the structure for

modules and DCOs (Digital Cooperative
Organizations). The protocol will give the approval for
the KYC and validate different factors before
extending benefit to any of the stakeholders. This
validation will also be depending on the nature of the
DCO (decentralized or federated) and approval from
the community.

Furthermore, there will be checkpoints to ensure

proper physical presence of the ecosystem players so
that there are no disparities in the future. Stakeholders
of the ecosystem will also evaluate the sponsors and
people with specific rights for each solution over a
module. T

his may be highly overlooked in decentralized systems,

but in systems with federated structures, there will be
specific checkpoints and measures to assess the same.
For example, shareholders will have rights according to
the module and the finance pay-out as well as rewards
will also be designed in the same way.
10

MODULE
GOVERANCE

As modules will be built over the core protocol, there will

be module specific governance structures in place. In case
of any further updates and modifications, the similar
community-based approach will be followed as in DCP. The
changes will be done by consensus only, and the voting
rights will be attributed according to the weightage in the
ecosystem. A module-based governance is also needed
because there will be module specific communities
focusing on their improvement and growth.
The modules have their own verification structure and
before onboarding of any new stakeholder, there will be
proper checkpoints in place to ensure that only validated
enterprises become a part of the ecosystem. These
checkpoints will have multiple basic constraints such as
geography/nation specific, so that one geography cannot
hamper growth in other geography.

DCO
GOVERANCE

The registration process of a Digital Cooperative Organization

(DCO) will follow the DCP and module governance. In case a
DCO is federated, it will undergo a proper validation process
and it will be required to adhere to the DCP and module
regulations.
The governance will also consider all the stakeholders and
promoters of the DCO and look at the nature of services
offered, modules needed and activated, finance modules, etc.
These DCOs will also require approvals form the modules as
well.
11

USE CASES

Multi-platform ecosystem for Agri Commodities

The AGRI10X protocol can be used by multiple companies serving in

the agricultural space. They can come together to build multiple
competencies around different products following the outlines defined
in the skeleton of the protocol. The suppliers could be farmers, input
companies or finished product companies. On the other side, buyers
could be traders, retailers or even farmers. Multiple layers could be
built over the different stages, which will allow the players to customize
their offerings to the user ecosystem, serving a very vast plethora of
users.

Credit and Trade Finance

Facilitating trade finance through AGRI10X protocol is one of the major

objectives. The players on the protocol can use native tokens to
facilitate the credit mechanism. These tokens will be disbursed from a
pool of investors who are part of the protocol. Although this ‘fund’ will
not be managed by any fund manager or central authority. Tokens will
be disbursed to the potential borrowers through smart contracts. The
borrower will need to be verified by different nodes in the network to
get a credit approval.
The borrower will be credited tokens to their wallet/account on the
protocol. From there, they can use these tokens to carry out
transactions on different platforms on the protocol.
Farmers can take input credit in the form of tokens on the platform and
then go to a platform selling fertilizers. They can spend their tokens on
the fertilizers purchase over that platform. At the time of selling their
produce, the credit tokens can be deducted with the interest due from
their receivables.
This model can be scaled to any number of stakeholders belonging to
any type of value chain. For example, the same model can be used to
extended to gold commoditization, where there will be a supplier, a QC
agent, a buyer, and a transporter in the horizontal chain. And parallelly
to this chain, there will be a credit module facilitating credit to the
different stakeholders.
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USE CASES
Derivatives and Exchanges

With the different commodities and products being traded on the

platform and multiple transactions happening through the native
tokens, we can build a derivative platform around the protocol. The
platform will allow people to invest in futures and derivatives of these
commodities.
With the variation in demand of the tokens, its price will also vary. This
will allow the platform to cat as an exchange for these tokens to
different fiat currencies across geographies.

Warehouse Loan

With the help of blockchain, we will be able to build a module which

will enable financing on the basis of warehouse receipts. The protocol
will have multiple warehouses onboarded which will be a part of the
network. The financing will be done on the basis of the goods stored in
these warehouses in the name of borrowers. these credits will be
facilitated after keeping the produce as a collateral against the loan.

Marketplace for NFTs

With the help of AGRI10X protocol, an NFT marketplace can be built.

This marketplace will have a wide collection of different products and
commodities in form of NFTs which other users can buy. These NFTs
can also be auctioned off when required. The marketplace can create a
level playing ground for the players from all cohorts and demographics
to host their products on the platform. Agricultural commodities also
have Geographic Indication (GI) tagging with them, which defines their
source of origin. This way, agricultural commodities can be marketed as
an NFT on the blockchain.

Market Intelligence

The DCM protocol is embedded with the AI based Organization

specific intelligence tools for various stakeholders. The protocol will
provide AI-enabled services like satellite weather data, market
intelligence, global price discovery, source and destination mapping,
basic advisory, KYC module, and input costing to its platform members.
13

EXHIBITS
Exhibit 1
Agricultural Production and GDP Contribution statistics for Top 15 countries

Rank Country Total GDP (USD Billions) Agriculture GDP (USD Billions) % GDP
1 China 11,940.0 991.0 8.3%
2 India 2,439.0 375.6 15.4%
United
3 States 19,360.0 174.2 0.9%
4 Brazil 2,081.0 129.0 6.2%
Indonesi
5 a 923.3 128.3 13.9%
6 Nigeria 394.8 85.3 21.6%
7 Russia 1,469.0 69.0 4.7%
8 Pakistan 278.9 68.9 24.7%
Argentin
9 a 619.9 67.6 10.9%
10 Turkey 841.2 56.4 6.7%
11 France 2,575.0 51.5 2%
12 Australia 1,390.0 50.0 3.6%
13 Japan 4,884.0 48.8 1%
14 Sudan 119.0 47.1 39.6%
15 Mexico 1,142.0 44.5 3.9%
World 79,450.0 5,084.8 6.4%

Exhibit 2
Basic Structure of the Protocol

KYC Seller/ Verification Warehouse Logistics

Marketplace Buyer
Module Supplier / QC

Fintech
Module

Exhibit 3
Process Flow of NFTs
Uploading
Set up of Uploaded
Commodities Moderation Approval of
Token Wallet Assets listed
info of Digital by Platform NFT’s
after user KYC for Sale
Assets

Platform Seller notified

Bidding for Discovery by
executes the about the
the NFT Buyers
transaction Bids
14

Exhibit 4
Facilitation Lending through the AGRI10X Protocol

Individuals on
the Protocol

Token Pool

Trade Finance (Y) Credit/ Loan (Y)

Buyers/ Return (Y + Y 1) Return (Y + Y 1) Farmers /

Traders Consumers

NOTE
No Investment Advice
The information contained herein does not constitute investment advice, financial
advice, trading advice, or any other sort of advice and you should not treat any of
this White Paper’s content as such. Agri10x does not recommend that any
cryptocurrency should be bought, sold, or held by you. Do conduct your own due
diligence and consult your financial advisor before making any investment
decisions.

Accuracy of Information
Agri10x will strive to ensure accuracy of information listed within this White Paper
although it will not hold any responsibility for any missing or wrong information.
Agri10x provides all information as is. You understand that you are using any and
all information available here at your own risk.
15

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https://medium.com/@genesishack/draft-what-are-blockchain-
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Falkon, S. (2017, Dec 24). The Story of the DAO — Its History
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https://medium.com/swlh/the-story-of-the-dao-its-history-and-
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Teach Computer Science. (n.d.). Protocol Layers. Retrieved

from Teach Computer Science:
https://teachcomputerscience.com/protocol-layers/