# What is XENE?

XENE is the native token of the Xenea network; XENE utilities are as follows:

1. **Network Currency:** Used for transaction fees and network usage fees.\

2. **Governance:** Used by holders and their agents to exercise governance over proposals in the future (e.g., parameter changes, protocol upgrades, etc.).\

3. **Block Rewards:** Rewards are used to protect the network and support the PoD consensus that validates transactions on chain. Escrow and voting nodes receive XENE rewards as an incentive to continue to secure the network. Incentives for DACS nodes that provide storage are also allocated from block rewards. Rewards to these network participants are newly issued according to rules encoded in the protocol, increasing the supply of tokens up to a defined issuance limit.\

4. **Collateral for DACS:** Used as collateral to become a DACS node, which is on-chain storage; to operate a DACS node, node operators are responsible for staking XENE and storing data.\

5. **Rewards for Contributors:** Used to reward ecosystem builders and community contributors.
