# BENQI Miles

**BENQI Miles**, formerly known as **veQI**, are governance tokens that represent a user’s stake and influence within the BENQI protocol.&#x20;

They're earned by staking QI tokens within the protocol and enable users to vote on various aspects of the protocol. As you stake QI, you accumulate Miles over time, which can then be used for an increasing number of potential use cases covered below.

## **Progressive Decentralization**

As BENQI matures, more aspects of the protocol will be governed by QI token holders both on-chain & off-chain. The founding team will bootstrap the initial release phase of BENQI.

BENQI Miles will be used to vote on all aspects of BENQI. To begin, it has been applied to Node Voting, covered in [node-voting](https://docs.benqi.fi/node-voting "mention")

Examples of other parameters (subject to change) where you could use BENQI Miles for voting in the future might include:

* The **Interest Rate Model**
* **New assets** that meet the risk requirements of the protocol&#x20;
* **Risk parameters** for over-collateralization and liquidation
* **Changes to the Liquidity Mining Program** to adjust incentives depending on market conditions&#x20;
* **Protocol improvements**&#x20;