Who it is for
Five roles, one contract. Each role has its advantages and its drawbacks.
The protocol sets two numbers: the cost of entry, which only rises, and the backing per token, which is defended below. Everything a participant can do is a way of standing between those two numbers. Here are the five ways, in plain terms; the formal treatment with the arithmetic is on the next page.
The saver
You deposit collateral and hold a position at today’s cost of entry. The deposit comes back in full whenever you ask. If the market price later stands above your entry price, closing the position turns it into tokens worth more than you put in; if it does not, you redeem and lose nothing but time.
- Deposit returned in full, at any time
- A fixed entry price while the cost of entry keeps rising
- Voting credits when you close above backing
- The use of the capital while it sits
- A volatile collateral currency, if you chose one
The holder
You hold ASTRX. Its market price sits in a corridor: backing below, cost of entry above. Backing rises through closings, fees and burns and is defended from falling by more than a set share of its record. When the reserve is in stablecoins, an outflow of participants does not lower it at all.
- A floor that is defended and, by the rules, tends upward
- Redemption for the reserve share at any time
- A vote in every parameter, by burning
- Market risk inside the corridor: the price can fall towards backing
- Redemption fee, multiplied in drawdowns
The spender
You pay with ASTRX or accept it. Every transfer burns a fee, if the holders have set one, and every burn raises backing for everyone. The more the coin is used, the higher its floor. Accepting it is therefore not only a payment but a hedge: you receive an asset whose lower boundary rises with use.
- A unit that is spent like money and backed like a deposit
- Turnover itself raises the floor
- No counterparty, no custodian
- A transfer fee, when the holders have set one
- Price inside the corridor, not a fixed number
The trader
You trade the corridor. Unlike a market with no reference, this one has two: above the cost of entry, minting beats buying; below backing by more than the fee, redeeming beats selling. Strategies can be built on levels the contract publishes, and every trade you make narrows the band for everyone else.
- Two published reference levels
- Mean reversion inside a bounded band
- Your activity narrows the corridor — until it stops paying
- Fees and gas on every leg
- A band that narrows as more traders join
The liquidity provider
You provide ASTRX and a stablecoin to a pool. Concentrated liquidity needs a range; the corridor is one. The price cannot leave it, so impermanent loss is bounded, and fees flow from traders and spenders. As both boundaries move up, the range moves with them.
- A range whose edges are published and defended
- Bounded impermanent loss
- Fees from every other role
- Re-ranging as the corridor rises
- Capital tied in the pool
The fund
You back the protocol’s development and receive a share of the protocol fee. The share is an address in the treasury; once written, nobody can remove it, and there are at most one hundred. The fee’s ceilings are in the code.
- An irremovable address, a bounded number of shares
- Fee ceilings readable on-chain
- Terms discussed individually
- Alignment with the protocol’s inflow, not with any price
Every role but the last votes: fees, protection depth, growth rate, collateral currencies. Voting is not a sixth role; it is what the five have in common.
One rule that follows from the arithmetic
The formal treatment
Definitions, the arithmetic of each role, the asymmetry between impulses and corrections, and the scenarios — with the figures.