🧊ICE tokens: locking AQUA and getting benefits

ICE tokens are a frozen version of AQUA, designed to give loyal AQUA holders more flexibility, increased voting power, and additional benefits within the Aquarius ecosystem.

Key Facts About ICE

Benefits of ICE

• Dual Voting Capability: Unlike AQUA, ICE tokens can be used simultaneously for both liquidity market voting and governance voting.
• No Voting Restrictions: ICE votes can be withdrawn at any time, making it easier to rebalance votes. Users can also retrieve ICE immediately after a governance proposal concludes.

• Increased Rewards: Holding ICE can enhance rewards for participating in SDEX & AMM liquidity incentives. The more ICE an account holds, the higher the potential rewards boost for providing liquidity in selected markets. Eligible markets for liquidity rewards can be found at aqua.network/rewards.

Note: Due to the migration to Soroban, ICE boosts have been temporarily disabled and are expected to return in Spring 2025.

Limitations of ICE

• ICE "Melts" Over Time: Your ICE balance gradually decreases as the AQUA unlocking date approaches. The protocol reclaims ICE from your wallet and votes. To maintain your balance and voting power, you can earn more AQUA through rewards and bribes and lock additional AQUA.

• Non-Transferable: ICE tokens cannot be sent, bought, sold, or deposited anywhere.

Locking AQUA into ICE

The process of converting AQUA into ICE tokens takes place on the Aquarius website: aqua.network/locker. Users can choose how much AQUA to lock and for how long—the longer the lock period, the more ICE tokens they receive. To achieve the maximum 10x boost, AQUA must be locked for at least three years. For more details, refer to the Locker tool guide.

Locking AQUA occurs entirely at the protocol level on Stellar. When using the locker tool, a claimable balance is created and sent back to the user’s wallet. Only the wallet owner can reclaim the locked AQUA, effectively unfreezing ICE after the selected lock period expires.

Security Note: Locking AQUA using the Aquarius Locker is completely safe. The tokens remain securely stored on the Stellar blockchain, and only the original owner can reclaim them later.

ICE Utility Tokens

Users who lock AQUA receive four additional non-transferable tokens in their Stellar wallets, specifically designed for use within the Aquarius ecosystem:

ICE

• Tracks how much AQUA a user has locked in their wallet.

• Determines the distribution of upvoteICE, downvoteICE, and governICE.

• Does not have a direct operational use—it simply remains in the user's balance.

upvoteICE & downvoteICE

• Used for upvoting and downvoting markets at aqua.network/vote.
• Help determine which markets qualify for the Aquarius reward zone.

• Markets must hold at least 0.5% of total votes in the Aquarius liquidity voting system to qualify for SDEX & AMM rewards.

• These tokens empower the community to decide which markets should receive liquidity incentives.

governICE

• Used for voting on governance proposals at aqua.network/governance.

By receiving these four separate ICE tokens when locking AQUA, users can simultaneously participate in all aspects of the Aquarius ecosystem. In contrast, those who only hold AQUA (without locking) can engage in either liquidity voting or governance voting, but not both at the same time.