The IQ token is a cryptocurrency dedicated to building a more intelligent future through artificial intelligence and blockchain technology. The IQ token powers a knowledge ecosystem including applications such as IQ GPT, an AI agent for blockchain knowledge, IQ.wiki, the world's largest cryptocurrency and blockchain encyclopedia, IQ.social, an AI-powered social forum for crypto news and insights, and IQ Code, an upcoming AI product created to assist people in coding Solidity and Vyper sets. The IQ token is a DeFi and governance token with IQ stakers governing the platform. The token is managed by BrainDAO which holds a treasury of IQ tokens, stablecoins, blue chip NFTs, and other digital assets. ^{[29] [32]}. The IQ token is multichain available on Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, and EOS.^[42][47][49]

IQ.wiki

The IQ token is integral to IQ.wiki. IQ token holders who stake their tokens with the HiIQ staking system, vote on governance decisions involving both the platform and the IQ token itself.

In 2024, IQ.wiki plans on introducing HiIQ BrainPass NFTs for IQ stakers which will provide several benefits including the ability to edit on IQ.wiki. Subscribers of BrainPass will gain access to enhanced functionalities in various services such as IQ GPT, IQ.social, and the upcoming IQ Code.^[47]

Artificial Intelligence

In February 2023, IQ.wiki became one of the first decentralized applications to integrate artificial intelligence. IQ.wiki integrated OpenAI's GPT-3 model for summarizing wiki articles. The AI integration allows large pages like the wiki on the Bored Ape Yacht Club to be summarized in seconds.^[32]

In the blog post announcing the integration, the BrainDAO team shared some more information on future AI integrations. They also explained how the IQ token rewards could be used to build a system around training artificial intelligence which would incentivize the testing and development of artificial intelligence. ^[32]

"And this is just the beginning. We are exploring several use cases for AI within the IQ ecosystem. BrainDAO is looking into how AI could be used to translate articles into different languages. This would break down barriers and make it much easier for editors to collaborate and share knowledge about the blockchain space. Another use case is identifying potential trending topics before they became popular. AI could also be used to edit wiki articles for spelling and grammar as well as neutrality. AI will be a key tool in scaling IQ.wiki and increasing the utility of the IQ token.

The IQ token powers a knowledge ecosystem that includes decentralized applications such as IQ.wiki. The platform was built from the ground up to be fully Web3 with all edits recorded on-chain through Polygon and IPFS.

In 2023, BrainDAO will focus on not only integrating AI into the IQ.wiki platform but also building a system around training artificial intelligence. Through IQ token rewards for contributions to the IQ.wiki encyclopedia BrainDAO has the opportunity to incentivize the testing and development of artificial intelligence. We’ll be sharing more about our plans for 2023 soon."

On March 22, 2023, IQ.wiki integrated GPT-4. In the blog post announcing the integration, the BrainDAO also added ^[36]:

BrainDAO is now focused on developing its own AI by training its LLM with wiki articles on IQ.wiki to improve the quality of summaries further.

IQ GPT

IQ GPT is an AI agent for blockchain knowledge developed by IQ.wiki. IQ GPT focuses on providing real-time and contextually relevant information within the blockchain domain. It caters to various use cases, including learning, development, and trading activities, with the ability to streamline research processes and filter out irrelevant data.^[37]

In 2023, IQ GPT integrated contents and data sets from platforms such as IQ.wiki's extensive database, DeFiLlama, Frax Docs, Binance Academy, DeFi Protocol Documentations, The Associated Press News, CoinGecko, Flywheel DeFi, BlockBeats, InvestHK and CoinNess.^[47]

In late 2023, the BrainDAO team introduced the IQ GPT Chat, designed to support Telegram and Discord communities involved in cryptocurrency, DeFi, NFTs, and related topics. According to IQ v3, released on November 1, 2023, the team's vision is to build a version of IQ GPT Chat for dapps and websites like decentralized exchanges, DeFi applications, cryptocurrency projects, NFT projects, data platforms, and more.^[47]

Upon its initial launch, users were onboarded through a waitlist system. However, those staking IQ tokens (HiIQ holders) with a minimum of 100,000 HiIQ balance were allowed early access and could bypass the waitlist.

Navin Vethanayagam, Chief Brain of IQ.wiki, said in a comment to CoinDesk:

"Reading through a 1,000 word encyclopedia entry to answer a question is difficult and time consuming for users, and the GPT-4 search engine solves that as users can simply ask a question. At the same time, by making information search easier, the search engine, called IQ GPT, helps fight misinformation and makes onboarding easier for new traders."^[38]

BrainDAO

The IQ token is managed by BrainDAO which is governed by IQ stakers. The value of the IQ token is also backed by BrainDAO's treasury of IQ tokens, stablecoins, blue chip NFTs, and other digital assets. BrainDAO's portfolio of Ethereum, IQ tokens, stablecoins, blue chip NFTs, and other digital assets back the value of the IQ token. By September 2022, the BrainDAO treasury amassed over $2 million in wrapped ethereum and over $5 million in total assets. By February 2023, BrainDAO's treasury had reached a value of over $15 million. ^[35] The BrainDAO treasury is fully governed by IQ token stakers. In October 2023, the BrainDAO’s treasury acquired 2,100,000 sFRAX through Frax Finance’s ERC4626 staking vault. Staked FRAX was released in October 2023, and as of writing, BrainDAO holds $2.1M sFRAX which is now the 4th highest in its treasury and the 6th largest staker in sFRAX. BrainDAO's treasury has been diversifying its portfolio, including holdings of other sFRAX stablecoins through the Time-Weighted Average Market Maker (TWAMM) on Fraxswap, along with other notable assets such as sfrxETH, cvxFPIS, cvxFXS, sDAI and more. By November 2023, BrainDAO's treasury had reached a value of over $20 million.^{[17] [34][44]}

Liquidity

Centralized Exchanges

The IQ token was listed on the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, in June of 2020. The IQ token is also listed on Crypto.com, Coinone, Upbit, South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchanges. ^{[23] [24] [25] [26] [22] [43]}

In October 2023, Coinone, one of South Korea’s top cryptocurrency exchanges by volume officially became the second exchange to list the IQ token with a KRW fiat pair. This comes after the IQ token saw a record volume on Upbit and Binance in 2023 seeing several days with over $100 million in volume and one day with over $380 million in volume.^[45][46]

IQ/USDT

On September 20, 2023 Binance announced that the IQ token will gain an IQ/USDT (Tether) pair at 2023-09-22 08:00 (UTC). At the time of the announcement, Tether had a market cap of over $83 billion making it the world's largest stablecoin by market cap. The pair replaces the IQ token's previous IQ/BUSD pair. ^{[39] [40] [41]}

Fraxswap

In September of 2022, the IQ token was listed with an IQ-FRAX pair on Fraxswap, the first constant product automated market maker with an embedded time-weighted average market maker (TWAMM) Fraxswap is the first constant product automated market maker with an embedded time-weighted average market maker (TWAMM). The IQ-FRAX pool is incentivized with IQ token rewards and FXS rewards for IQ-FRAX liquidity providers. ^{[27] [28]}

HiIQ

HiIQ launched on August 4, 2021, and was created to incentivize IQ holders to become long-term holders who stake and lock up their IQ tokens. The HiIQ staking system allows IQ holders to choose how long they want to lock up their IQ in addition to the number of IQ tokens they would like to stake. The greater the amount of IQ locked and the greater the length of time the tokens are locked the greater the HiIQ balance of the staker. Stakers then receive IQ token rewards in proportion to their HiIQ balance. ^[18]

Technical Background

HiIQ is a vesting and yield system based on Curve’s veCRV mechanism. Users may lock up their IQ for up to 4 years for four times the amount of HiIQ (e.g. 100 IQ locked for 4 years returns 400 HiIQ). HiIQ is not a transferable token nor does it trade on liquid markets. It is more akin to an account-based point system that signifies the vesting duration of the wallet's locked IQ tokens within the protocol. The HiIQ balance linearly decreases as tokens approach their lock expiry, approaching 1 HiIQ per 1 IQ at zero lock time remaining. This design encourages long-term staking and an active community. Sushiswap has proposed a similar implementation with their recently announced oSushi token. A sample graph (Curve’s veCRV) illustrating the decrease can be found at this address.

Tokenomics

IQIP-14: IQ Tokenomics for the New IQ.wiki Platform

On October 11, 2022, a proposal IQIP-14: New IQ Tokenomics for IQ.wiki went up for voting. The proposal involved setting up new tokenomics for the IQ token. The proposal involved moving to a halvening model for the IQ token like Bitcoin and FXS which provides higher initial emissions to incentivize early adopters and gradually lowers emissions to ensure long-term sustainability. The vote passed with over 750 million HiIQ voting in favor of the proposal. ^[30]

On November 1, 2022, the BrainDAO team implemented the proposal in the largest update to the IQ tokenomics since the launch of the IQ token in 2018.

Maximum Supply

In June of 2021, the maximum supply of IQ was permanently hard-capped at 21 billion IQ tokens to minimize the risk of dilution and to bring the IQ token in line with Bitcoin's maximum supply cap of 21 million tokens.

Halvening

As a result of the IQIP-14: ‘New IQ Tokenomics for the New IQ.wiki Platform’, the first IQ halvening began on November 1, 2023, the same date that the BrainDAO team announced IQ v3. As a result of halvening, 1.5 million IQ are minted each day for HiIQ stakers starting from November 1, 2023. ^[47]

As part of the update, the team proposed further lowering inflation by reducing the amount of IQ allocated to the TWAMM to obtain stablecoins and blue-chip assets. With the BrainDAO treasury stablecoin holdings increasing along with higher than expected yields through sFRAX they were able to propose this reduction in IQ allocated to the TWAMM. The proposal involved reducing the allocation from 2,166,667 IQ to 2,000,000 IQ post-halvening.^[47][48]

IQ Gauges

BrainDAO is developing the IQ Gauges system to determine which projects will receive part of the token emissions. Inspired by Curve Wars’ impact on Frax, IQ Gauges aims to enhance the IQ token's value by encouraging projects to direct emissions to their respective token pairs. IQ Gauges will also integrate a vote market, allowing HiIQ stakers to participate in voting, with potential incentives from projects seeking favorable votes.^[47]

Since IQ gauge emissions are fixed and halve annually, governance can decide to allocate part of the protocol's cash flows or IQ tokens to gauge rewards in the future. Users who stake their tokens in a gauge contract can earn higher annual percentage rates (APR) based on their HiIQ holdings. Additionally, those who lock their deposited tokens for a specific duration receive an extra boost, allowing them to stack both boosts to maximize their APR.^[47]

IQ.social

IQ.social is an AI-powered social forum for crypto news and insights. IQ.social was launched by BrainDAO in November 2023 and is powered by the IQ token. The platform is a part of the IQ.wiki ecosystem, featuring IQ GPT, IQ Code, and IQ.wiki.^[47]

The platform is governed by HiIQ stakers who curate and rank all of the articles submitted to IQ.social. IQ.social was announced and launched as part of the IQ v3 update in November 2023.^[47]

IQ stakers can add articles and vote for the content of interest by liking an article. If a pending article receives two or more votes and has a HiIQ score of over 100k, it automatically gets published on the homepage of the platform. The HiIQ score of an article is determined by the total HiIQ balance of the users who favored the article.^[47]

IQ Code

IQ Code is an upcoming AI product powered by the IQ token to assist people in coding Solidity and Vyper sets. IQ Code was announced as a part of the IQ v3 update by BrainDAO in November 2023. The platform is a part of the IQ.wiki ecosystem, featuring IQ GPT, IQ Code, and IQ.wiki. The platform is set to go live in 2024.^[47]

BrainPass

As part of IQ v3, BrainDAO announced they will be launching BrainPass in 2024, aimed at increasing the utility of the IQ token. It will be structured as a subscription service, granting individuals and organizations improved access and enhanced features across a spectrum of AI tools in the ecosystem.^[47]

Subscribers of BrainPass will gain access to enhanced functionalities in various services such as IQ GPT, IQ Code, and IQ.social, and will also have editing privileges on IQ.wiki. Enhanced features for services like IQ GPT may encompass increased rate limits and access to forthcoming integrations related to blockchain and cryptocurrency market data. Additionally, BrainPass membership gives access to specialized integrations like Telegram and Discord bots for eligible project team members in the ecosystem, with eventual exclusive access for projects that engage in IQ staking.^[47]

Origins

On December 6, 2017, Everipedia announced they were building "the first encyclopedia on the blockchain," and they are working on a cryptocurrency token called IQ which would be used to govern the platform and incentivize editors. Prior to expanding onto the blockchain, Everipedia had an IQ points system where editors would get non-tradable points to signify how many contributions they had made to the site. ^[33]

In 2018, the IQ token launched and the Everipedia encyclopedia moved onto the blockchain. On July 12, 2018, Everipedia airdropped 51% of the IQ token supply to EOS holders. Everipedia Co-Founder and CTO Travis Moore explained that by doing an airdrop Everipedia would ensure the widest possible distribution of IQ tokens with every EOS holder receiving tokens.^[16]

"The airdrop will play a significant role in helping Everipedia accomplish as wide of a distribution as possible for IQ tokens."

~3.5% of the tokens marked for the airdrop were not airdropped since those tokens were held by exchanges that did not support the airdrop. These tokens were instead re-invested into the Everipedia ecosystem through the IQ Fund. ^[31]

About 15.7% of the supply was locked up for founders and early backers. These tokens vested throughout a period that began on May 4th, 2020 and ended on May 4th, 2022.

10% of the initial supply was held by the company, as a treasury. The company treasury has been used for partnerships, development, and other ecosystem and IQ growth initiatives. The original account for the team treasury was ytehekdmilty.

About 14.7% of the initial supply was held by EOS VC. Almost exactly 5% of the initial supply was held by the IQ Fund. A fund of tokens we have committed to using/investing to support developers and projects looking to build IQ token-related products and DeFi dApps. The IQ Fund’s tokens might be sold periodically for stablecoin equivalents to keep the fund rebalanced and in good standing. The initial account for the IQ Fund was everipediavc.