We’re excited to announce the finalized XIW (pronounced “zai”) Token Model! It’s been many months in the making and it’s one of the main assets that differentiates XiWATT from other projects in the blockchain space. Have a read through and join us on Telegram if you’d like to discuss it with us.

Before getting into the meat of how the XIW Token Model works, we encourage you to visit our site for a quick overview of the platform and read through our white paper.

Photo by Antonio Garcia

XIW tokens distributed in the Token Generation Event (TGE) remain in the possession of TGE participants and can be used by them and/or sold to potential XiCE platform users outside of the platform like any other ERC20 compliant token.

The XiCE ecosystem is divided into two groups of participants; the renewable energy project developer and the customer. Both operate on distinct rules when it comes to the use of XIW tokens within the platform, which will be explained later in the next section.

XIW Token Model - Customer Benefits

Customers use their XIW tokens as bargaining chips for negotiating cost discounts and other benefits when dealing with developers.

For the developer, each XIW token represents the ability to bid on 100W of installed capacity. Developers require XIW tokens to bid on renewable energy projects, which range from large-scale projects to residential projects and everything in between. As such, the XIW token is a sought-after commodity for developers; a lack of tokens can lead to missed opportunities and the inability to bid on lucrative projects.

In the case illustrated above, the developer on the right met the required threshold of XIW tokens to bid on the 15MW project while the developer on the left did not and was rejected on the basis of having insufficient XIW tokens in their wallet.

As soon as a developer wins the bid, the XIW tokens required to win the bid become unusable by the developer for a period of one year. In a sense, the tokens become temporarily “inactive.” If the developer wants to continue bidding on new sectors, they will have to acquire more XIW tokens or wait a year before they can use their existing ones.

XIW Token Acquisition - For Developers

There are two ways a developer can acquire XIW tokens.

The first is when developers negotiate deals with customers in exchange for XIW tokens. The tokens are transferred to a developer’s wallet upon completion of a project.

In this case, Developer B offered a better price to the customer and acquired 5,000 XIW tokens in return for their discount.

Since any given lead on the platform is almost guaranteed to be a paying customer, the cost per acquisition for a developer using the XiCE platform is significantly more affordable than any alternative.

The second way to acquire XIW tokens for developers is from outside the platform (i.e. not from winning contracts). Any XIW tokens that are acquired this way are only useful for a period of 2 years, after which point they are removed from the developer’s wallet and transferred into the XiWATT pool.

Wallet IDs are assigned to developers and controlled by the XiCE platform; once XIW tokens are deposited into a developer’s wallet, they are locked and cannot be withdrawn. The exception being the withdrawal to the XiWATT pool as described in the previous paragraph.

The XiWATT Pool

The XiWATT pool contains XIW tokens that will be gifted to new users of the XiCE platform. The small gifted amount will only be available for use within the platform. The initial seeding of this pool will come from the TGE (see XIW token creation ratios).

Additionally, customers have the option to rate developers after the project is complete. If the developer receives a less-than perfect rating, their XIW token earnings are reduced and the difference is reverted to the XiWATT pool.

In the example above, the customer rates the developer following the completion of the project. In turn, the developer receives 8,000 XIW, while the remaining 2,000 XIW are absorbed back into the XiWATT pool.

XIW Token Model - New Developers

It’s important to note that all developers who are new to the XiCE platform will start with 0 XIW tokens in their wallet.

When developers sign up for the XiCE platform, they are given a 1-year grace period during which they can bid on project listings to earn XIW tokens from customers in exchange for cost discounts and/or other benefits. The developer who offers the most beneficial terms for the customer wins the bid and acquires the XIW tokens offered by the customer.

If these new developers want to continue using the XiCE platform after the 1-year grace period is concluded, they need to accumulate XIW tokens in order to bid on future customer proposals.

If a developer joins the platform years after it is launched, they will have to compete with other developers who already possess XIW tokens. To make the playing field as level as possible, new developers can still compete with existing developers by offering a better value deal than their competitors.

Use of XIW tokens - Residential Market (non-Sectors)

Smaller energy consumers (e.g. residential rooftop solar customers) can list themselves as customers requiring distributed energy resources (“DERs”). The platform will strategically allocate each user to a local pool of other customers with similar requirements. The aggregate energy needs of this pool of customers then becomes open to proposals from developers.

Participants in pools can aggregate their XIW tokens to give developers a larger incentive to bid on the pool. The key benefits are lower prices for customers due to economies of scale and improved time and inventory management for developers.

Use of XIW tokens - Large-Scale Projects (Sectors)

Larger-scale projects (exceeding 1 MW) typically involve one customer who may or may not have a significant amount of XIW tokens to offer the developers as an incentive.

In order for large-scale developers who have been on the platform for more than a year to bid on these Sectors, they need to hold a large amount of XIW tokens. If a developer wishes to retain the ability to bid on future Sectors or sustain their growth through the platform, they have the option to open up a percentage of the eventual installed capacity of the Sector they are developing to XIW token trade-ins from crowdfunding participants.

For example:

A customer wants to create a 10MW sector that will be crowdfunded on the XiCE platform.

The developer that wins the bid offers to build the Sector for $10 Million.

The developer wants to accumulate XIW tokens through this deal, but the customer does not have many XIW tokens to offer.

The developer can opt to accept XIW tokens as funding for a portion of the Sector’s installed capacity (e.g. 1MW installed capacity for 100,000 XIW tokens)

When the crowdfunding of the Sector begins, XIW token holders can trade in their XIW tokens as funding for the project and receive Sector tokens in return (e.g. 1MW worth of Sector tokens)

In this case, the result is a crowdfunding purchase of 10 MW worth of Sector tokens in a Sector listing that raised $9 Million and 100,000 XIW tokens for the developer. The ratio of XIW tokens to Sector tokens will be driven by the market demand within the XiCE platform.

The XIW Token Model is predicated on a simple barter economy between customers and developers on the XiCE platform. As the platform grows, more customers become available, which means that there is more business to be acquired by participating developers, but only if they have the XIW tokens to satisfy bidding conditions. The value of XIW is determined solely by how serviceable the token is to a developer in acquiring new customers.