The IQ token is a cryptocurrency dedicated to the future of knowledge. The IQ token powers IQ.wiki, the world's largest cryptocurrency encyclopedia. The IQ token is both a governance and DeFi token with IQ stakers governing the platform and earning rewards. The token is managed by BrainDAO and backed by BrainDAO's treasury of IQ tokens, stablecoins, blue chip NFTs, and other digital assets. ^[29]

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. IQ token stakers also earn IQ token rewards from staking their tokens with HiIQ and for contributing to the IQ.wiki platform.

After the beta period, IQ.wiki plans on introducing HiIQ Brain Pass NFTs for IQ stakers which will provide several benefits including the ability to edit on IQ.wiki. Users will also be able to acquire the NFTs by purchasing them with IQ tokens.

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. The BrainDAO treasury is fully governed by IQ token stakers. The treasury accumulated ETH over time through Olympus Pro bonds. The BrainDAO treasury has also accumulated FRAX stablecoins through the Time-Weighted Average Market Maker (TWAMM) on Fraxswap. ^[17]

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 and Upbit, South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchange. ^{[23] [24] [25] [26] [22]}

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 for 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. The greater the HiIQ balance the greater the amount of IQ token rewards a staker will receive and the greater the voting power they will have on governance votes. In addition to IQ token rewards, HiIQ stakers also have the ability to participate in NFT raffles. ^[18]

As of October 2022, HiIQ stakers have earned over 400 million IQ tokens. By March 2022, IQ holders had staked a record 1.5 billion HiIQ, with the majority of stakers locking up their tokens for over 3.5 years. IQ holders have staked more than 454 million IQ tokens with HiIQ.  ^[19]

Technical Background

HiIQ is a vesting and yield system based off of 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.

NFT Raffles

HiIQ NFT raffles are powered by Chainlink Verifiable Random Function (VRF) on Polygon for HiIQ stakers, ensuring that winners are quickly and randomly chosen in a provably fair manner. IQ holders who stake their IQ with HiIQ will have the chance to get limited edition NFTs in addition to IQ token rewards for staking. Every HiIQ token a user holds acts as a raffle ticket which means that the more HiIQ token they have, the higher chances they have to win the NFT raffle.

The first NFT raffle included 15 NFTs from the Juicy J’s Journey collection which was created by the Academy Award-winning and Grammy Award-nominated hip hop artist Juicy J in collaboration with Everipedia. In February 2022, IQ.wiki (known as Everipedia at the time) and Zipcy’s SuperNomal raffled off 15 Zipcy’s SuperNormal NFTs to HiIQ stakers using Chainlink VRF on Polygon to celebrate Korean Seollal and Chinese New Year. In July of 2022, IQ.wiki held the largest ENS raffle, raffling off 100 of 100k Club ENS to HiIQ stakers. By September of 2022, the floor price of the NFTs had doubled from 0.02 ETH to over 0.04 ETH. ^{[20] [21]}

Tokenomics

IQIP-14: New 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.

Origins

Airdrop and Initial Distribution

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.