Token
$QAIS token economics
One ERC-20 powers the whole marketplace: every inference job is priced and settled in $QAIS, nodes stake it as collateral, and a flat 5% protocol fee is split three ways — with a slice burned on every transaction. Fixed supply, no mint.
Live on Arbitrum Sepolia
Numbers below are read from the token contract at build time. Testnet $QAIS has no real value.
Token contract: 0x5532663d4d4560d9923e30fb7230b82edcb25531
Fixed supply
1,000,000,000
Total $QAIS, fixed at genesis. The token contract has no mint function.
ERC-20 · 18 decimals
Designed for Arbitrum One at mainnet; live today on Arbitrum Sepolia (an Ethereum L2), testnet only.
Deflationary
Every job permanently burns a fraction of supply — the float only shrinks.
Where the 5% fee goes
The protocol takes a flat 5% of every job — enforced in the settlement contract, not optional — and splits it three ways:
60% — operations
Retained by the protocol treasury for hosting, gas, R&D, and grants.
20% — stakers
Paid pro-rata to node operators who stake $QAIS and secure the network.
20% — burned 🔥
Permanently removed from the fixed supply (≈1% of every job payment).
Initial distribution
| Allocation | Share | $QAIS |
|---|---|---|
| Ecosystem fund — node incentives + grants | 30% | 300,000,000 |
| Community sale / IDO (public) | 20% | 200,000,000 |
| Protocol treasury | 15% | 150,000,000 |
| Team & founders | 15% | 150,000,000 |
| Seed round (private) | 5% | 50,000,000 |
| Series A (strategic) | 5% | 50,000,000 |
| Liquidity (DEX pools) | 5% | 50,000,000 |
| Advisors | 3% | 30,000,000 |
| Airdrop / early users | 2% | 20,000,000 |
| Total | 100% | 1,000,000,000 |
Vesting & unlocks
Insider allocations cliff and vest over years; only ~12.6% of supply unlocks at the token generation event.
| Allocation | Cliff | Vesting |
|---|---|---|
| Team & founders | 12 months | 36 months linear (48mo total) |
| Seed round | 6 months | 24 months linear |
| Series A | 3 months | 18 months linear |
| Advisors | 6 months | 18 months linear |
| Community sale | none | 25% at TGE, 75% over 12 months |
| Liquidity | none | 100% at TGE (LP-locked ≥ 24 months) |
| Ecosystem fund | none | released by governance as earned |
Node staking tiers
Nodes post $QAIS as slashable collateral. A bigger stake unlocks higher-value jobs and better routing — skin in the game scales with what you can earn.
| Tier | Min stake | Max job value | Access |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze | 100 QAIS | $0.50 / job | All jobs |
| Silver | 500 QAIS | $5.00 / job | Premium jobs |
| Gold | 2,500 QAIS | $50.00 / job | Enterprise jobs |
| Platinum | 10,000 QAIS | Unlimited | Priority routing |
What the token is for
Payment
Every inference job is priced and settled in $QAIS — constant utility demand.
Staking collateral
Nodes stake to participate; bad behaviour is slashed (see Security).
Staking yield
20% of all protocol fees flow to stakers, pro-rata to stake.
Governance
Staked $QAIS votes on fee rate, minimum stakes, and treasury allocation.
Distribution, vesting, and tier figures are the protocol's mainnet design (see the contracts on-chain); the network is currently testnet only.