# LAOS Utility Token *Note: In March 2024 the LAOS Token was classified as a Utility Token by Switzerland’s financial regulator FINMA.* [*Find out more here*](https://x.com/laosnetwork/status/1772925616473432237) *.* ## LAOS Token Overview The LAOS utility token will **empower the entirety of the LAOS ecosystem** to operate securely, efficiently and fairly. The LAOS token is instrumental and inextricable from facilitating of core functions of the LAOS ecosystem. Stakeholders at each substrate of the LAOS infrastructure stack interact with the token in their respective capacities, rendering the token an **invaluable tool in aligning incentives across the ecosystem.** Ultimately, LAOS aims at becoming the consensus system that every other chain uses to scale their Digital Ownership transactions, **independent of centralized oversight and control.** This described democratization of ownership requires the implementation of a powerful tool which can both operate as a **medium of exchange for users of the platform, security, and a fairly distributed marker of future decision-making**. The LAOS token is specifically designed with these different, yet essential, objectives in mind.
## LAOS Token Utility While the LAOS token is necessarily pervasive throughout the LAOS ecosystem (& beyond), its core functionality can be refined to three uses. The **LAOS utility token powers the minting and evolution of assets,** regardless of the blockchain of choice. Further, it **distributes decision-making power from a centralized structure to an entire community**, enabling token holders to vote on key protocol decisions. A breakdown of the three primary uses of the LAOS token: **Usage** LAOS is needed to execute transactions. During the initial phases of the project, these transactions will mostly account for bridgeless minting offloading from other chains, asset metadata extensions as well as the usual gas fees for transaction such as token transfers, affecting governance or staking. In later stages of the project, LAOS tokens will be used to operate on the future LAOS Relay Chain and the Evolution Chains. **Staking** Underpinning the security of the network, validators receive LAOS tokens as rewards upon the inclusion of new valid blocks in the LAOS Parachain. Additionally, delegators can stake their LAOS to unlock a range of benefits, including additional token rewards and governance rights, while helping preserve the security of the network. **Governance** Immediately after the initial stages related to deploying to mainnet and ensuring that the network is stable and secure, LAOS will start migrating to a decentralized governance model. Any stakeholder in possession of LAOS tokens will have the option to participate in LAOS network governance. This token model brings about incentive alignment across different stakeholders by allowing participation in the future direction of LAOS through proposals, discussions, and voting. True to the ethos of decentralization, the distribution of token holders corresponds to a similarly distributed set of voting power. As such, from the moment of LAOS decentralization, the community will be collectively responsible for monitoring, assessing, and actioning governance decisions. ## Improving the Token Ecosystem LAOS is a continually evolving system with ongoing enhancements to its economic design, aiming to provide the best user experience for all network participants. The **changes to the protocol will be managed by the LAOS DAO**, and all community members are warmly encouraged to partake in the process. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://laos.gitbook.io/laos-whitepaper/tokenomics/laos-utility-token.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.