QiDao Migration: Upgrading QI’s Tokenomics

QiDao Protocol
3 min readOct 18, 2023

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TL;DR: QiDao is upgrading its long-standing governance token locking product! This comes with a new QI token on all chains except for Ethereum. It also means a move from single-locked QI to 80/20 on Balancer.

aveQI Overview

Advanced voting escrowed QI, or aveQI for short, introduces QI-ETH LP locking on Balancer’s Ethereum deployment. Users that lock QI-ETH will be able to boost their voting power over QiDao as well as their share of weekly revenue distributions from the DAO. A user’s voting power and distribution share will be a function of how much QI-ETH they lock and for how long. A minimum of 28 days is needed for new locks, with a maximum of 4 years.

QI-ETH LP tokens from Balancer can be locked via the Mai Finance UI. Once locked, tokens cannot be removed until the unlock date is reached. Locking can also be done directly via the protocol’s aveQI smart contract.

Using QI-ETH instead of QI for QiDao’s new locking mechanism will allow the DAO to maintain liquidity for QI without the need for inflationary rewards. Only tokens earned through the operations at QiDao will be used to incentivize aveQI.

Token Flow Framework

1. Revenue earned

QiDao is the most widely used CDP stablecoin project in DeFi, with over 10,000 active minters on several chains. Revenue from operations on these chains is constantly collected by revenue contracts.

2. Consolidation

Revenue is consolidated weekly from all chains on Optimism. If token balances are too low to be transferred, they are held in the chain where they were earned until token balances are sufficient. Token transfer costs cannot exceed 10% of the value being transferred.

3. Incentivization

Every two weeks, 50% of accumulated revenue from all chains is used to incentivized QI-ETH’s gauge on Balancer. This is done via voting markets. veBAL holders that vote for QI-ETH will receive token rewards from QiDao’s revenue. After Balancer’s biweekly gauge ends, QI-ETH’s votes will result in BAL rewards being allotted to QI-ETH. Only users that lock QI-ETH in aveQI will be eligible for BAL rewards as it is this locking mechanism that was approved by Balancer governance for distributions.

If the ROI on voting markets is less than 1x, meaning voting incentives exceed expected BAL incentives, then revenue is distributed directly by QiDao to aveQI lockers.

4. Claiming

aveQI lockers will be able to claim tokens distributed on the Boost page at mai.finance or directly through the contract. Users that lock for longer or with a greater amount will have a greater boost in their share of weekly distributions.

tokenomics overview

Liquid Lockers

beQI and tetuQI

Liquid lockers by Beefy (beQI) and Tetu (tetuQI) will be migrated automatically without any user action needed. New liquid locker contracts will be deployed by the respective teams to handle QI-ETH LP deposits on Ethereum

vQI

Given the sunsetting of Gotchi, the vQI community has voted to merge with beQI. Beefy’s team has kindly agreed to facilitate this merge.

Bridging

QI is now native to Ethereum. Bridging to other chains will be handled through a token standard that maintains token sovereignty at QiDao and not a bridge. Whitelisted crosschain messaging protocol will be able to bridge QI between chains. The standard being used for QI tokens outside of Ethereum is Layer Zero’s OFT. Stargate, a bridge built on top of Layer Zero, is the first bridge that will facilitate crosschain transfers for QI.

Active DAO Participation

QiDao has always relied on the efforts of its entire community to thrive. Active community members, QI holders, QiDao users, and DAO contributors play an active role in developing new ideas and products. If you want to get involved, join our Discord and get started!

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