IQ Protocol is a decentralized money market for digital asset renting and on-chain subscriptions.

On March, 14, Simon Harmgardt from the Business Development team at IQ Protocol joined us to answer our questions.

Simon Harmgardt, IQ Protocol Business Development team.

Before joing the crypto space, I worked as a solution architect at SAP on their e-commerce products and customer data products. I then fell down the crypto rabbit hole, and fell in love with the tech and possibilities it opened.

Questions from the CryptoRank team

#1. Can you tell us about IQ Protocol ? What problems do you solve, both in the space and for the community?

Simon H.: – IQ Protocol is a digital asset renting protocol – both for renting our NFTs and Fungible versions of tokens. And we are working with many apps and games across various chains to integrate our technology. From the NFT side, imagine being able to rent out an in-game item that you own while you are not playing the game or on vacation and earn some extra income, all without passing ownership of your NFT and the renter not having to put up collateral. From the token version perspective – here is how it works at a high level:

For the Fungible token version here is how it would work with your token to get access to a specific feature/subscription/level of service/lower fees, etc. For a simple use case, let’s pretend Netflix had their own token that would be used to access their service.

Users would have two options:

• Hold – a certain amount Netflix tokens. The user would deposit their tokens into a smart contract and get an NFT in return. This NFT would give them access to the platform for as long as they hold it. To get their tokens back they would need to return the NFT and their tokens would be unlocked from the smart contract.
• Rent – Pay in a stablecoin or crypto of choice (we have an integration into DEXs for the conversion) to “rent” the required amount of tokens from lenders in order to be issued an NFT for the agreed-upon rental period that would give them access to the platform. You can think of paying a $10 a month fee for Netflix like you are used to, and what happens in the background is that the necessary amount of tokens are locked from token lenders and you are issued the NFT which gives you access to Netflix for that month. This could help with user adoption as some people do not want to be exposed to the price fluctuations of another currency. The fees that the renter pays go to the lenders in the form of interest.

There is also a revenue split built into the model as well, where you can set what % of the fees go back to the lenders and what % go back to your company/the protocol.

#2. Could you briefly describe the milestones IQ Protocol has achieved, and about your upcoming plans?

Simon H.: – We have just annouced our fundraising round: lots of great investors including guilds. We also have some great angel investors like Sandeep the co-founder of polygon, Some members of YGG and others. Next steps are to continue to on-board apps and games and execute on the roadamp (that is growing every week)! Will share more updates of exciting developments with our community when ready!

Questions from Twitter

#1. While IQ Protocol and PARSIQ may be separate, I think the concern is that resources which would’ve been used on PRQ are now being redirected to IQ Protocol growth — can you address this please?

Simon H.: – We originally built IQ Protocol to add utility to our token and improve our tokenomics. We knew our token wasn’t integrated directly to the adoption of PARSIQ, so we essentially built a decentralized SaaS subscription model where all customers will need to either hold a certain number of our tokens, or rent tokens and pay a monthly or annual fee in order to get access to a certain amount of data. The team is pushing PARSIQ forward like crazy. A recent example was being a sponsor of a hackthon at Eth Denver and also being a speaker there. The lineup of events we are going to where all the builders are is great, and you will see the PARSIQ team there more.

The more adoption IQ Protocol gets, the more teams we get to talk to who all have data needs. So there is cross-selling of solutions. Also, PARSIQ is focusing on protocol data, IQ Protocol being one of them, so teams that need in-depth data will be able to use PARSIQ for this. So, IQ Protocol adds opportunites for PARSIQ.

#2. Where I can get the latest updates or more information about the project?

Simon H.: – Please follow us on Twitter! Check out our website. Other socials:

• Discord – IQLabs (discord.com)
• Medium – IQ Labs – Medium
• Telegram – https://t.me/iq_protocol.

Questions from Telegram

#1. Many projects have problems with UI / UX and this one turns off new users. How do you plan to improve the interaction with new users and with users outside the crypto space?

Simon H.: – We have an amazing designer on-board that wants to build the best UX possible, more to come on that. But we also want teams building on top of us, and there will be sure some integrations of our tech into amazing UX products.

#2. When will your tokens be listed on the exchange and which exchanges do you plan to list on in the future?

Simon H.: – We plan to launch our token later this year. Listing can’t be discussed, however, we will try and make IQ Protocol as accessable as possible.

#3. IQ Protocol is a DeFi framework for renting prepackaged expired versions of digital assets for the use cases they enable. What are these expired packaged versions of digital assets? What is the utility it has for investors? How profitable does IQ Protocol bring this activity?

Simon H.: – Users can either use their tokens or NFTs for the utility that they bring. If they don’t, they can rent them out. We take a collateral-free approach, so you are never passing ownership of your NFT or tokens to someone else however, they get the wrapped versions. If you rent these assets and get the wrapped version, the apps or games will accept them as if they were the original – so they will have the same utility. Profitability wise, it will depend on how the company’s set up the interest fee for the token version.

#4. Are you planning to promote your project in countries/regions where English is not good? Do you have a local community for them to better understand your project?

Simon H.: –  

These are the languages we have available so far in our discord channel. Crypto and blockchain is a worldwide movement so if you speak another language and are passionate to help out, feel free to reach out and maybe you can be a moderator for your language.