Introducing Information Finance Token (IFT), a new asset class powered by ENS

💬 General Discussion
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Overview

Information Finance Token (IFT) is a new asset class of fungible tokens that have unique names. They are designed to create one single canonical financial representation for each human-readable word.

Every IFT is named after a subdomain under ift.eth. Take longevity.ift.eth as an example: it is both the name of the ERC-20 token and the ENS subdomain that resolves to the token’s contract address. These two constraints together enforce the uniqueness of each IFT.

As an example use case, the financial properties of this IFT, like its market capitalization, encode information about longevity’s staked popularity at the moment.

IFT Implementation

IFT Implementation relies solely on permissionless smart contracts with no centralized control, DAO, or arbitrary token allocation.

IFT’s uniqueness property is implemented using ENS subdomains under ERC1155.

An IFT is minted as a fixed supply ERC20 token. It is distributed via a bonding curve and an AMM pool where 100% of the supply is permissionlessly distributed via smart contracts.

  • Bonding curve genesis: IFTs are initially minted and burned algorithmically based on demand: as more users buy, the price increases along the curve.
  • AMM automation: when a IFT’s price reaches a predefined threshold, liquidity automatically migrates to an AMM for free-market access.

Turning ENS into a key infrastructure for information finance

Information Finance, as defined by Vitalik in a Nov 2024 article, is “the broader concept that you can use finance as a way to align incentives in order to provide viewers with valuable information.”

Today, ENS domains are primarily identity anchors. IFT adds a new layer: information finance. Subdomains like DeFi.ift.eth become trading assets whose financial properties reflect valuable, staked real-world information. The expansion turns ENS into a protocol for both identity and information. This aligns with ENS’s vision to evolve beyond naming into a broader Web3 infrastructure.

ENS operates as a non-profit, community-governed protocol. Similarly, IFT treats staked information as a public good – accessible to all, controlled by none. Market cap metrics could empower journalists tracking climate tech adoption, help students choosing what to study, orient economists who research tech cycles, echoing Vitalik’s call for decentralized, censorship-resistant information systems.

Demo application to launch in May 2025

VibeBet: Turn Tweets into Trend Bets

VibeBet is an AI agent built on IFT, bridging the gap between news and betting with a few clicks.

  • How It Works: Users tag @theVibeBet under any tweet. An LLM agent analyzes the tweet’s sentiment, recommends an IFT that represents an ongoing trend (e.g., AI.ift.eth), and lets users execute a $10 “trend bet” in seconds. If a lot of people tweet about a topic and start making vibebets, the topic becomes viral, and the IFT trend token price may go bananas.
  • Why It Matters:
    • As a free market tool, it democratizes access to investing (no financial expertise or hedge funds required).
    • As a public good, the market caps of tokens reflect the most staked information trends at the moment.

Other Possible Applications

Proof of Shared-ownership

By leveraging ENS’s contenthashrecord—which allows linking to IPFS, IPNS, Swarm, or even on-chain NFT metadata—an IFT can point to rich content such as an ERC-721 token, or directly to a text, image, audio file, or other media stored on IPFS.

An NFT (ERC-721 token) can only be owned by one account at a time, making it exclusive and singular in its use. In contrast, the concept linked to IFTs are inherently shareable—millions of accounts can hold the same IFT simultaneously. All of them can freely use the content tied to this IFT across the web, signaling participation in that concept.

Charity Coin

IFTs can support cause-driven lotteries. Imagine a forest fire trending in California—Alice mints calforestfire.IFT.eth and declares that 10% of proceeds will go to NGOs supporting firefighters’ families.

Participants gain exposure to a trending topic and a chance to win rewards, while the campaign channels funds toward public benefit. IFTs become a bridge between social momentum and philanthropic action.

Innovative Social Media

Social media struggles with novelty due to lagging content moderation and algorithms, often stifling new ideas. An innovative social media can priotize the intrinsic value and novelty of concepts over popularity. Building on the IFT implementation with ENS subdomains and tokens, users can “claim” and promote new ideas in a gamified way, akin to collecting gems. Actions like setting subdomains act as likes or retweets, while buying tokens adds financial stake, like commenting. Early adopters earn POAPs or tokens, building a reputation for curiosity and foresight. This creates a social graph driven by discovery, not follower counts.

Cultural Analysis

Info Tokens, with their market cap and trading activity, serve as a quantifiable measure of a trend’s cultural relevance. Researchers can analyse tokens like MentalHealth.ift.eth to gauge public interest over time. For example, a rising market cap for WorkFromAnywhere.ift.eth might indicate a growing cultural shift toward remote work and location-independent lifestyles, providing sociologists with data to study evolving work-life dynamics.

Supply Chain Optimisation

Info Tokens reflect the popularity of specific trends through their market cap. Given its decentralised nature, any business can analyse tokens like plantbasedprotein.ift.eth to predict consumer demand for relevant products. Merchants can also inform logistics decisions based on Info Tokens. For example, If homefitness.ift.eth ’s market cap rises steadily, indicating a boom in at-home workout equipment, distributors might redirect resources to warehouses closer to urban centers where demand is likely highest, reducing delivery times and costs.

SEO/Advertising Tools

Businesses can use trend data from Info Tokens to optimise SEO and advertising tools by leveraging real-time, decentralised insights into societal trends to enhance keyword strategies, target audiences, and campaign performance. For example, Info Token data enables precise audience targeting. Advertisers for longevity supplements can identify large holders of longevity.ift.eth Info Tokens combined with other insights to better target potential customers. This reduces ad spend waste and improves conversion rates.

How Can You Help?

We are launching the first dApp built on IFT, VibeBet, in May 2025.

We appreciate any feedback, questions, or suggestions the community might have!

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