IDEX Tokenomics
The IDEX token aligns incentives between the exchange and IDEX token stakers who play a key role in the operations of IDEX. Stakers are rewarded with 50% of the trade fees for their participation.
TL;DR
- Stakers are paid 50% of the IDEX trade fees
- All stakers operate mirror API’s of IDEX’s orderbooks that are open to the public
- Stakers can stake directly from cold storage
Staking nodes maintain a real-time copy of system data, such as the IDEX order book, and provide compatible REST API endpoints to the public. This reduces the IDEX operational costs by offloading popular API operations. Staking nodes are assessed on their uptime to determine how well they are doing their job. Uptime is a function of online periods and API performance.
Nodes stake IDEX tokens as collateral. New nodes must incubate their tokens before they can receive payment for node operations. In the event a node is serving incorrect data, the node address will be blacklisted and the operator must re-incubate their tokens. As there is no slashing mechanism involved, IDEX staking allows for “riskless” staking from cold storage.
IDEX Treasury
As one of the OG DApps, the first iteration of IDEX went live in late 2017. A few months later the IDEX token was born, airdropped to membership token holders and exchange users. Originally called AURA, we later rebranded to IDEX and enabled all AURA holders to swap 1–1.
Over the last 4 years a lot has happened with the exchange and the token, including an influx of users who don’t know our history. In particular, users want to know more about the token distribution and the plans for the company treasury.
As of the publication of this blog the company is currently holding 40.8122% of the IDEX tokens. The purpose of these tokens are to grow the product as we push towards IDEX v3 HL and beyond.
A non-exhaustive list of initiatives includes:
- Liquidity Mining on IDEX v3 HL
- Trade competitions
- Referral campaigns
- Marketing giveaways
- Partnerships
- Airdrops
- Additional marketing campaigns and incentives
The first major initiative is the launch of our liquidity mining rewards on IDEX v3. This will allow us to quickly build liquidity on our integrated AMM, providing the foundational liquidity for the exchange and driving higher trade volumes.
We’re fortunate to be in a position where the company treasury is still large enough to have a meaningful impact on product adoption. We’ve been intentionally conservative as it’s impossible to predict the different opportunities to grow the product that will present themselves. We will continue to effectively manage this treasury to ensure that the IDEX product is a success now and into the future.
