IFT Protocol

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Overview

Information Finance Token (IFT) is a new asset class: fungible tokens that have unique names. The intention of IFT is to support one single canonical financial representation for each human-readable word.

Every IFT is named after a subname inside the ENS namespace ift.eth.

E.g. longevity.ift.eth: under the IFT standard it is both:

  • name of the ERC-20 token and

  • the ENS subdomain that resolves to that token’s contract address.

These two constraints together enforce the uniqueness of each IFT.

In the example use-case: once the IFT is spawned, it will begin to have resulting on-chain financial characteristics. For instance, its token market capitalization which conveys information about longevity’s staked popularity at the moment.

IFT Implementation

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

IFT’s uniqueness properties are implemented using ENS subdomains under ERC1155.

Importantly, anyone could spawn a new IFT:

IFT is minted as a fixed supply ERC20 token. It is distributed via a bonding curve and 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.

Transform ENS into a key infrastructure for information finance

Information finance (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.”

To date, ENS domains primarily serve as identity anchors. IFT adds a new layer with new possibilities: information finance. Subnames like DeFi.ift.eth will be transformed into tradable 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 name resolution into a broader Web3 infrastructure.

What more could be resolved by ENS once the information finance horizon is opened up?

ENS operates as a non-profit, community-governed protocol. Similarly, IFT treats staked information as a public good—accessible to all, controlled by none.

Envision a future as market cap metrics that could empower:

  • journalists tracking climate tech adoption

  • help students choosing what fields to study,

  • orient economists who research tech cycles, and more.

IFT is a new proposal to Vitalik’s call for decentralized, censorship-resistant information systems; one that can hopefully spawn the next wave of info-financial applications.

Demo application to launch in May 2025

VibeBet: Turn Tweets into Trend Bets

An example of a user interacting with Vibebet.

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 tech investing (no financial expertise or private funds required).

    • As a public good, the market caps of tokens reflect the most staked information trends at the moment.

Other IFT enabled Applications

Scalable Shared-ownership / Financial Alignment

By leveraging ENS's contenthashrecord (linking to IPFS, IPNS, Swarm, or even on-chain NFT metadata) an IFT can point to rich content. This renders the concept linked to IFTs shareable and liquid out-of-the-box, supercharging ENS w. additional practical properties on top erc-721/1155.

Insight Oracle

Mechanism: prediction markets where users bet on future trend growth metrics (e.g., “Will ClimateTech.ift.eth’s market cap double in 6 months?”).

ENS Impact: Positions ENS as the backbone of decentralized forecasting.

Decentralized Social Media

Mechanism: Integrate IFT tokens into DeSoc protocols, where users stake *.ift.eth tokens to curate or promote content.

ENS Impact: Social platforms drive registrations (e.g., DeFiChat.ift.eth), positioning ENS as the DNS of decentralized communities.

Content Finance

Mechanism: Creators monetize content (e.g., newsletters, videos) corresponding to .ift.eth trends. Subscribers pay in units of the IFTs, aligning creator revenue with the trend’s performance.

Example: A climate tech newsletter charges subscriptions, paid with ClimateTech.ift.eth.

Charity Coin

IFTs can also 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. In this way, IFTs become a bridge between social momentum and philanthropic action.

About us

We are a crypto skunkworks lab, self-funded, focused on the boundary of the crypto frontier.

Most recently, 2024-25, we shipped the bridge client code of BitVM (as part of BitVM Alliance).

Selected examples, prior work (R&D, product design, & smart contracts/codebases):

  • trust-minimized bitcoin bridging (github)

  • decentralized stablecoin (spec)

  • reputation-secured oracles and middleware (spec)

In 2025 we have delved into information finance, on track to ship IFT and the first IFT-enabled-app: VibeBet.