Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions about ICHI and oneTokens

ICHI

ICHI is a self-sustaining, community governed platform that enables any third party cryptocurrency community to create and govern their own in-house, non-custodial oneToken (a stablecoin valued at $1) with a Decentralized Monetary Authority (DMA).

What was ICHI V1?

ICHI V1 was a pilot project that demonstrated the feasibility of a new stablecoin design. It launched successful stablecoins for large cap (Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Chainlink), mid cap (Wing.finance) and small cap (Strudel.finance) cryptocurrency communities. Each of these stablecoins remained pegged to $1 during the Q1 2021 bull market and the May 2021 market correction. These V1 stablecoins will continue to work indefinitely on the Ethereum network as unstoppable financial infrastructure. (Find ICHI V1 at https://www.ichi.farm/)

How is ICHI V2 different?

The defining concept of ICHI V2 is a Decentralized Monetary Authority (DMA). DMAs give any cryptocurrency community the ability to hold their scarce cryptocurrency which they believe will increase in value over time (store of value) while also governing their own oneToken (an ICHI stablecoin). Their oneToken will provide their community with USD exposure in decentralized finance, the ability to transact with stable currency, and adoption discounts and incentives. A community no longer needs to pay their own scarce project tokens in exchange for stablecoins created by other communities or institutions. (Find ICHI V2 at https://app.ichi.org/)

What are ICHI rewards?

ICHI rewards are distributed with every block on the Ethereum network at a current rate of 0.25 ICHI/block. 50% of the rewards are distributed to liquidity providers for oneToken pools while the other 50% of rewards are distributed to liquidity providers for Ichi pools. The oneToken pools are rewarded proportional to the number of oneTokens minted while the Ichi pools are rewarded proportional to the amount of non-Ichi liquidity.

How do I earn ICHI rewards?

Anyone who participates in yield farming by providing liquidity to oneToken or Ichi liquidity pairs can earn ICHI rewards (i.e. farming).

Who is behind ICHI? When did it start?

The total 5 million ICHI was minted in November of 2020 as a completely fair launch with no pre-mines, ability to create more ICHI, and community driven governance from day 1.

Since that launch, the Ichi community has hired full time staff with experience from Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, as well as multiple DeFi and crypto-native projects.

What are ICHI halvings?

An ICHI halving event is when the rewards for farming ICHI are cut in half. ICHI halvings happen when the ICHI community puts forward a proposal to have a halving and passes it. Learn more on the Halvings page.

Can the ICHI treasury be used on things other than farming?

Yes, the ICHI treasury can be used on any proposal passed by the ICHI community. Learn more at on the Community Treasury page.

When does xICHI get paid ICHI? Can I see an APY?

xICHI holders who have participated can be rewarded by oneToken treasuries, in proportion to their contributions. There is no specified schedule or even guarantee of such rewards. Rewards to xICHI holders are announced via Telegram and can be found in the Week In Review (WIR) posts on ICHI's Medium.

What is the ICHI token? How many are there?

ICHI is the governance token required for voting and provided as an incentive in the Ichi community. ICHI is hard capped at 5 million tokens and is distributed to liquidity providers on a per block basis on Ethereum.

How can you afford to pay such high APYs?

APYs are calculated based on the trading fees and token incentives which accrue to liquidity providers for specific liquidity pools. The APY is calculated off of the historical data in each of these categories meaning that it is a point in time approximation.

How does ICHI earn rewards?

Each oneToken community can elect to establish yield generating positions with their collateral reserves or community treasuries. As these positions earn yield, they may choose to reward ICHI holders for participating in governance proposals. Only users who have participated in submission of proposals, commenting, reviewing and/or voting will be entitled to receive ICHI token governance rewards.

How do I report a bug or an issue? Is there a bug bounty?

Issues can be opened on our Github repo or emailed to [e-mail]. Validated bugs or exploits will be provided a reward.

oneTokens

oneTokens provide the hard peg of centralized stablecoins without sacrificing on decentralization. oneTokens keep their value at $1, are purely on-chain, and accrue a community treasury in each oneToken’s cryptocurrency.

How is it possible to mint a new ICHI stablecoin for $1 of value?

Decentralized oracles (live price feeds provided by networks of computers) determine the price of two assets in US dollars: USDC (a stablecoin issued by regulated financial institutions, backed by fully reserved assets, and redeemable on a 1:1 basis for US dollars) and the project tokens. You mint a new stablecoin by paying exactly 1 US dollar in two parts (part USDC and part project tokens) as calculated by these oracles.

What is oneICHI?

oneICHI is ICHIs native stablecoin. It is worth exactly $1 USD as it is minted using 100% USDC.

How is it possible to redeem an ICHI stablecoin for $1 of value?

You redeem a stablecoin for exactly 1 US dollar of USDC, less a redemption fee. The price of USDC in US dollars is provided by decentralized oracles.

Why can't you just use the cryptocurrency (ie, Bitcoin) to do business activity?

You can't grow a business without the ability to predictably pay expenses, control risk, and/or set aside funds for taxes. That makes volatile, scarce coins unusable for real business. At the same time, it hurts every time you sell a coin for fiat currencies (money issued by governments rather than software) or stablecoins don't economically drive the value of that coin's treasury. ICHI makes it possible to community hodl (hold your coins rather than selling them) your favorite coin while also doing real business.

What does 100% on-chain mean?

You can see the USDC collateral and the coins paid to mint on the Ethereum blockchain as well as the entire transaction history of minting, redeeming, and any treasury actions. If the coins or USDC are used by the coin’s community to create DeFi (decentralized finance positions), you can see these transactions and positions in the corresponding smart contracts.

What is the community treasury?

You pay in project tokenss to mint that project’s stablecoin. These coins remain in a community treasury because you only get back USDC when you redeem the coin’s stablecoins. The coin’s community decides what to do with this treasury by voting with the stablecoin itself. A common action may include selling part of the community treasury to buy more USDC and deposit it back into the stablecoin’s USDC collateral.

How does a community profit from a DMA?

Communities that create their own stablecoin with a DMA are able to introduce a stable medium of exchange for their economy without having to dispose of their native project tokens.

DMAs enable communities to:

• Create their own decentralized stablecoin

• Create a community treasury to incentivize adoption

• Earn yield on their own stablecoin

• Increase total value locked in their community

Where can I use these oneTokens to do business? Why would anyone accept them?

There are three major markets for stablecoins: decentralized applications (DeFi), cryptocurrency applications (centralized exchanges, wallets, etc), and consumer applications (online shopping, everyday goods and services). Users will mint the first $10B stablecoins for DeFi, the next $100B for cryptocurrency applications, and trillions for consumer applications. This will take time but the community treasuries are able to power the incentives and discounts necessary to make this happen.

What happens if the scarce crypto goes down in value?

Ichi requires a minimum treasury reserve ratio of 150% in order to ensure 100% of oneToken redemption at $1. Decreases in scarce crypto value which put this ratio at risk should result in purchasing of additional collateral tokens or unwinding of yield bearing positions.

In the May market volatility all oneTokens were able to maintain their pegs to exactly $1 while few other stablecoins did.