> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.visionmakers.io/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.visionmakers.io/whitepaper/utilities.md).

# 10 · Token utilities

What $VMKS does across the nine products, and which utilities are backed by revenue

$VMKS is the access and settlement asset for the Vision Makers stack. This section sets out what
the token actually does, product by product, and separates two things that are usually blurred
together.

**Access utilities** govern what a holder is allowed to use: premium analytics, launchpad tiers,
competition entry, governance. They are gated by holding or staking.

**Revenue utilities** are the ones attached to money the platform already charges. Every one of
the nine products charges for something, and those charges are the economic base the token sits
on. A utility that only exists because a document says it exists is a promise; a utility
attached to a live fee line is a business.

> **FIG-10**: Nine products charge for use on one side; holding and staking unlock access, entry and voting on the other.

## Revenue-driving utilities

The nine products in commercial operation generate three kinds of revenue: **recurring
subscription**, charged monthly or annually for continued access; **transactional take**, charged
as a percentage or a flat fee at the moment an action settles; and **marketplace and project
fees**, charged to the counterparty rather than the user.

| Product | What is charged | Revenue type | Token role |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Intelligence Layer** | Premium analytics, predictive models, API access | Recurring subscription | Payable in $VMKS; tiers gated by holding or staking |
| **MOFO & Mindshare** | Premium data tiers, tracked wallet slots, alert volume | Recurring subscription | Payable in $VMKS; higher tiers gated by holding |
| **vDEX** | Platform fee on each swap, charged on top of the venue fee | Transactional take | Fee discount for holders; share of fees routed to the rewards pool |
| **Neobank** | Account use, card issuance, FX on spend, interchange | Transactional take | Fee and FX discounts for holders and stakers |
| **Vision VPN** | Subscription for encrypted connectivity | Recurring subscription | Payable in $VMKS; bundled at higher staking tiers |
| **Vision Makers Pad** | Listing fee and a fee on capital raised | Project-side fee | Allocation tier set by amount held or staked |
| **vMakers** | Competition entry fees | Transactional take | Entry medium and reward currency |
| **Vision Disperse** | Platform fee per batch distribution | Transactional take | Fee discount for holders |
| **VM AI Hub** | Marketplace take on agent and tool sales | Marketplace fee | Payment rail for tools and API credits |

### Intelligence Layer

The research surface is the platform's largest subscription line. The free tier answers questions;
the paid tiers unlock the work that costs real money to run, which is model inference, continuous
risk scoring across five dimensions, route pricing and historical depth. API access is sold
separately to teams who want the signal inside their own systems.

Subscription is payable in $VMKS, and the tier a user qualifies for is set by holding or staking
rather than by payment alone. This is the clearest case of the two utility types meeting on one
product: revenue arrives as a subscription, and the token decides what the subscription buys.

### MOFO & Mindshare

Mindshare works top down from narratives to tokens; MOFO works bottom up from wallets to the
tokens they are moving into. Both are metered. The free tier gives a limited number of tracked
wallets and alerts; paid tiers raise those limits, shorten the refresh interval and open the
historical series.

Metering is what makes this a durable revenue line rather than a one-off. A user tracking
forty wallets does not stop tracking them next month.

### vDEX

Every swap carries a platform fee, charged on top of the liquidity venue's own fee and displayed
before the user commits. This is the most direct link between platform activity and revenue in
the stack: it scales with volume, requires no subscription decision from the user, and is
collected at the moment value moves.

Holders pay a reduced platform fee. A defined share of the fees collected is routed to the
ecosystem and rewards pool rather than retained in full.

### Neobank

The Neobank is an account and a card, not a card alone. It earns in the ordinary ways a card
programme earns: issuance, foreign exchange on spend, and interchange paid by the merchant's
acquirer rather than by the user. Interchange matters because it is revenue the user never sees
on their statement, which means it scales with spending without creating a reason to stop
spending.

Holders and stakers receive reduced fees and improved exchange rates. Spending data is also a
behavioural signal the Intelligence Layer consumes, which is revenue and product value from the
same transaction.

### Vision VPN

Encrypted connectivity is sold as a straightforward subscription, and it is the most
conventional revenue line in the stack: predictable, recurring, and unrelated to market
conditions. When trading volume falls, VPN revenue does not.

It is payable in $VMKS and bundled at higher staking tiers, which converts a cash subscription
into a reason to hold.

### Vision Makers Pad

The launchpad earns from projects rather than from participants: a listing fee to run a sale, and
a fee on the capital raised. Participants pay nothing to qualify, but what they can access is set
entirely by the token. Amount held or staked determines both eligibility and allocation tier.

### vMakers

Competitions are entered with $VMKS and pay out in $VMKS. A share of each entry fee is retained
as platform revenue and the remainder forms the prize pool. Entry fees are not refundable once a
competition window opens.

### Vision Disperse

Batch distribution carries a platform fee per run, which is materially cheaper than sending the
same payments individually but is still a per-use charge on a tool used by projects, payroll
operators and communities. Holders pay a reduced fee.

### VM AI Hub

The AI Hub is a marketplace, and it earns a take on what sells through it: agents, tools and API
credits. Marketplace revenue has a different shape from the rest of the stack, since it grows
with the number of builders rather than the number of traders, and it settles in TON alongside
the $VMKS rail for platform tools.

<div class="callout">
<span class="callout-label">Fee parameters are governed, not fixed here</span>
Fee rates, the share of collected fees routed to the ecosystem and rewards pool, holder discount
levels and tier thresholds are governance parameters, set and revised by vote. They are not
stated as numbers in this document, because a number here that a vote can change tomorrow would
be misleading. Current published parameters are the ones in effect on the platform. See
<a href="/whitepaper/governance">section 11</a>.
</div>

## Access and governance utilities

Six utilities are load-bearing on the access side. Each is tied to platform usage rather than to
emissions.

| # | Utility | Mechanism |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **Premium access** | Unlocks advanced AI analytics, predictive models, premium dashboards and early-release features |
| 2 | **Staking** | Earns rewards, confers governance rights and unlocks premium functionality |
| 3 | **Launchpad qualification** | Amount held or staked sets eligibility and allocation tier on Vision Makers Pad |
| 4 | **Competition entry** | Entry medium and reward currency for vMakers competitions |
| 5 | **Ecosystem payments** | Payment method for AI tools, API access, analytics modules and promotional campaigns |
| 6 | **Governance** | Vote on platform upgrades, treasury deployment, partnerships and ecosystem development |

### Premium access

The platform is usable without the token. What the token changes is depth: advanced analytics,
predictive models, premium dashboards and early access to features before general release.
Gating by holding rather than by payment alone means the access is held, not consumed, which
produces a standing reason to keep a position rather than a single purchase.

### Staking

Staking does three things at once. It earns rewards from the ecosystem and rewards pool, it
confers governance weight, and it unlocks premium functionality that a non-staked balance does
not reach. Weight derives from holdings and staking duration rather than balance alone, so a
borrowed position bought for a single vote carries less weight than a long-held one.

### Launchpad qualification

Allocation on Vision Makers Pad is tiered, and the tier is a function of the amount held or
staked over a qualification window. This is the utility with the clearest demand mechanic in the
stack, because a tier has to be reached before a sale, not during it, which means demand arrives
ahead of each launch rather than after it.

Oversubscription is normal. A tier gives eligibility, not a guaranteed allocation.

### Competition entry

vMakers competitions use the token on both sides of the transaction: entry is paid in $VMKS and
prizes are paid in $VMKS. The competition format recycles the same tokens through the ecosystem
repeatedly rather than consuming them once.

### Ecosystem payments

The token is a payment method across the stack: AI tools, API access, analytics modules and
promotional campaigns on the platform's own surfaces. Where a service can be paid for in either
a stablecoin or $VMKS, paying in $VMKS is the cheaper route.

### Governance

Holders vote on platform upgrades, treasury deployment, partnerships and ecosystem development,
through the proposal lifecycle set out in [section 11](/whitepaper/governance). Supply
commitments, published vesting schedules, legal obligations and the non-custodial custody model
sit deliberately outside the scope of a vote.

## Why this is structured around revenue

Most token utility arguments rest on emissions: the token is valuable because holding it pays
more of it. That is circular, and it ends when the emission schedule does.

The structure here is different in one specific way. Every utility in the first table is attached
to a charge the platform already collects from a product that is already live, from 630,000+
registered users and 110,000+ transactions. Subscription revenue from the Intelligence Layer,
Mindshare, MOFO and the VPN does not depend on market conditions. Transactional revenue from
vDEX, the Neobank, Disperse and vMakers scales with activity. Project-side revenue from the Pad
and the AI Hub scales with the number of teams building on the platform. The token's role is to
be the cheapest way to pay for all of it and the only way to access the top of it.

The counter-argument deserves equal space, and it is the same one that applies to every
usage-linked design. Revenue has to be large enough for a share of it to be material, discounts
only matter if the underlying fee is worth discounting, and a token can decouple from the product
that backs it regardless of how well the mechanism is designed. Holding the token is not an
entitlement to revenue. See [section 13](/whitepaper/risk-factors).

<div class="callout">
<span class="callout-label">What $VMKS is not</span>
$VMKS is a utility token. It is not a share, a security, a deposit or a debt instrument. It
carries no entitlement to revenue, profit, dividends or any distribution from
Vision Makers Technologies Inc., and no claim on the assets of the company. Governance rights
are rights over platform parameters, not over the company. Nothing in this section is an offer
to sell, a solicitation to buy, or investment advice. See
<a href="/legal/risk-disclosures">Risk Disclosures</a>.
</div>
