ICE. The next stage of Aquarius
Freeze AQUA into ICE, enabling boosted liquidity rewards and increased voting flexibility & power.
What an incredible first year we have had here at Aquarius! We’ve enjoyed every moment, from the first protocol ideas & minting of AQUA on Stellar to the launch of liquidity rewards & governance. It’s been quite the journey so far, and we’re excited to bring you in on our next plans for the Aquarius ecosystem.
Aquarius has always had one main goal, to bring more liquidity to Stellar.
A jump towards this goal started when we launched AQUA liquidity rewards. Our rewards engines distribute AQUA hourly to market makers & liquidity providers who bring assets to Stellar and increase liquidity on specific markets.
With the liquidity voting tool, AQUA holders can choose markets that qualify for the reward zone and earn additional liquidity rewards. Alternatively, holders can use their AQUA inside Aquarius Governance to vote on proposals that can change how Aquarius functions.
Although participation in both liquidity & governance voting is high, holders need to either allocate AQUA towards liquidity or governance voting without a way to do both simultaneously. We believe it’s time to lift AQUA’s limitations, giving loyal AQUA holders more flexibility & greater benefits.
Today, we are introducing ICE tokens, an upcoming way for AQUA holders to increase yield earned through AMM & SDEX rewards and boost their voting flexibility & power throughout Aquarius.
🧊 ICE tokens
So what are ICE tokens?
ICE tokens work similarly to veCRV on the Curve platform, with users locking the main CRV token in exchange for veCRV. This secondary token allows for voting in governance and boosts CRV liquidity rewards on Curve.
We will be taking this core idea and revamping it for use inside the Stellar ecosystem. Users who lock (freeze) AQUA will receive four additional non-transferable tokens inside their Stellar wallets, specifically for use in the Aquarius universe.
These tokens are:
- ICE
- upvoteICE
- downvoteICE
- governICE
All four tokens are minted on the Stellar network and use the aqua.network domain name. These are non-transferable tokens, so they can’t be bought, sold, or transferred to another Stellar wallet. They will only be obtainable by locking AQUA via the Aquarius locker tool, so beware of fakes! These tokens do not exist yet and can’t be bought or swapped on the SDEX. We will announce further updates about the launch only through our official social media channels (Twitter, Telegram, Discord, and Medium).
Although four new tokens may sound daunting, all our products will guide and help you understand which of these tokens you will use in any specific case. Each of the new ICE tokens brings additional features & benefits to those who decide to freeze AQUA. So how does the process work and what are the benefits?
❄️ Freezing AQUA
Thanks to airdrop #2, we already have a way for users to freeze AQUA for up to three years through the locker tool. To build upon this further, we will expand the locker tool’s functionality, allowing it to distribute the new ICE tokens to users when they lock AQUA.
The process is quick and easy, with the tool helping create trustlines and distribute all four ICE tokens to users when they freeze their AQUA. Freezing is done via claimable balances on Stellar, ensuring immutability and transparency.
Those who have previously locked AQUA tokens using the locker tool will be able to claim all four ICE tokens upon launch, giving their locked AQUA a boost and making them usable again inside of the Aquarius ecosystem.
So why bother freezing AQUA in exchange for the new utility tokens?
Once users freeze their AQUA into ICE, they immediately get access to increased yields from SDEX & AMM rewards, boosted power for liquidity & governance voting, and expanded freedom within the Aquarius ecosystem.
Keep reading below to discover how this works.
🧑🌾 Increased Liquidity Rewards
We believe increased participation in Aquarius deserves increased AQUA liquidity rewards. So first and foremost, freezing AQUA immediately boosts your yield earning capability when market-making & liquidity providing on reward zone markets.
The main benefit of ICE is the ability to boost your rewards on provided liquidity. The higher a user’s ICE balance, the higher their boost for liquidity rewards.
Currently, your AQUA liquidity rewards don’t depend on your AQUA balance. After the ICE launch, those who do hold AQUA can choose to freeze them into ICE to earn vastly increased SDEX & AMM liquidity rewards.
🤸 Voting Flexibility
The three remaining ICE tokens all contribute toward voting flexibility, with each used for a specific voting function within Aquarius. Although non-transferable, they can still be placed inside claimable balances, allowing for their voting functionality.
upvoteICE & downvoteICE will work inside vote.aqua.network, where they are used to select markets that will receive AQUA liquidity rewards. downvoteICE will be used to downvote markets in liquidity voting. Additionally, both of these tokens are only subject to a 1 hour minimum voting period. Swap and change your votes anytime to your heart’s content!
governICE will work inside gov.aqua.network, where they are used to vote for or against active governance proposals. governICE is not affected by the Vote Lock Periods introduced in gov v2.0 and is available to reclaim 1 hour after a proposal vote ends.
The best part is that you can use all three simultaneously! There’ll be no more hard decisions on whether to stop voting for your favourite markets to participate in governance or vote against any other market pair.
🏋️♂️ Increased Voting Power
A crucial advantage of freezing AQUA is the vast increase in voting power across governance & liquidity voting!
The longer AQUA is frozen, the more of each ICE token is given. The longest possible lock is three years. For every 1 AQUA locked for a maximum period you will receive:
- 10 ICE tokens
- 10 governICE tokens
- 10 liquidity voting tokens (8 upvoteICE + 2 downvoteICE)
Upvote, downvote, and govern ICE all have the same voting power as AQUA. So a user locking 1 Million AQUA for the max of three years would receive:
- 10 million ICE
- 10 million governICE
- 8 million upvoteICE
- 2 million downvoteICE
That means their voting power increased 10 times compared to their state before freezing AQUA. ICE tokens distribute immediately when a user locks AQUA, instantly allowing for boosted votes across Aquarius products.
�� Melting ICE
As the unfreezing date of AQUA gets closer, ICE tokens melt! The action of melting means voting power decreases over time unless a user freezes more AQUA.
Melting occurs through Stellar’s native clawback operation. Aquarius can scan Stellar addresses & claimable balances for all four ICE tokens daily and burn a percentage of them. This mechanic allows Aquarius to reduce a user’s ICE holdings and any votes made, as AQUA tokens get closer to their unlock date.
As a simple example, a user locks 1000 AQUA into ICE for a max of three years, giving them 10,000 ICE. These ICE tokens will melt linearly over time as the AQUA unlock date approaches.
Every year, the user’s ICE holdings will reduce by 3000 until the amount of ICE tokens reaches 1000. So if the lock was made on 01/08/2022 for three years:
- The user would start with 10,000 ICE
- On 01/08/2023, they’ll have 7000 ICE
- On 01/08/2024, they’ll have 4000 ICE
- On 01/08/2025, they’ll have 1000 ICE
Once AQUA reaches the unlock date, and the amount of ICE tokens is equal to the number of AQUA tokens locked, the user can unlock their AQUA. At this time the user can claim the AQUA, and their ICE tokens will be burned immediately.
🚀 Launch & Smart Contracts
Over the last few months, we have been planning various Aquarius updates and releases. Some plans had to be changed — due to the huge changes coming to the Stellar network itself. With the native smart contracts arriving soon, we know they will play a core role in what lies ahead for Aquarius. Our team is closely following the SDF’s progress and exploring the WASM and Rust stack.
Since day one, Aquarius’s goal was to build a safe, resilient, and decentralized platform promoting liquidity and bringing value to users and ecosystem projects. The addition of smart contracts will help us finally achieve our goals in a decentralized fashion. Smart contracts will undoubtedly be the biggest change to the Stellar network itself, and while we don’t know all the details yet on how it will affect Aquarius, we are thrilled to see what comes next.
We’re excited for the community to start using ICE, changing how they use & interact with AQUA & Aquarius. We plan to launch ICE tokens in July 2022, so there’s not long to wait!
🗞 Subscribe & Follow
You can learn more and keep up to date with the team & community using the following links:
