Decentralized options on Ergo. Write calls and puts on crypto, commodities, and indices — peer-to-peer or through permissionless liquidity pools. Physical delivery of real tokens. Cash settlement in stablecoins. No intermediaries. No databases. Just contracts.
Two ways to trade options, both fully decentralized. No admin keys, no databases, no offline decision points. Smart contracts on-chain, settlement bots anyone can run.
Peer-to-peer options marketplace
Writers create option contracts by locking collateral — the underlying asset (rsETH, ERG, DexyGold) for physical calls, or stablecoins (SigUSD/USE) for puts and cash-settled options. Each option is minted as a standard Ergo token. Buyers purchase tokens and exercise against the reserve.
Liquidity pool writes the contracts
LPs deposit into a pool that automatically writes option contracts. Any wallet can buy options from the pool. Off-chain bots (permissionless, anyone can operate) handle pricing and settlement. No central operator.
Strike prices denominated in stablecoins — SigUSD or USE, writer's choice. Physical options deliver the real asset. Cash options pay stablecoin profit. No ERG volatility risk on your strike price.
Ergo's original algorithmic stablecoin backed by the SigmaUSD protocol. Battle-tested since 2021, collateralized by ERG reserves in the AgeUSD protocol.
ALGORITHMICErgo's newer USD stablecoin from the USE Protocol. Algorithmic stabilization with active market operations. Growing liquidity across Ergo DEXes.
ALGORITHMICOptions are already complex instruments. Settling in a volatile asset like ERG adds a second layer of price risk that obscures P&L. Stablecoin settlement means your profit/loss is exactly what the contract says.
USD-DENOMINATEDPhysical options lock the real asset — Rosen Bridge tokens, native ERG, or DexyGold for physical delivery. Stablecoins for cash settlement. The oracle determines settlement.
Writer locks the underlying asset. Buyer receives it from the reserve at exercise.
Oracle determines payout. Writer locks stablecoins. No underlying changes hands.
Writer locks the underlying token. Buyer receives it from the reserve at exercise.
Silver, crude, natgas — oracle-fed, stablecoin-settled.
Major equity indices, denominated in USD stablecoins.
No orderbooks, no market makers, no intermediaries. Writers lock collateral into ErgoScript reserve boxes — the underlying asset for physical options, stablecoins for cash-settled. Buyers receive tokenized options they can hold, trade, or exercise.
Choose asset, strike price, expiration, type, and settlement mode. Lock collateral — the underlying asset for physical calls (rsETH, ERG, DexyGold), or stablecoins for puts and cash-settled options. The reserve box holds everything until exercise or expiry.
Buy them peer-to-peer on Etcha. Hold, transfer, or exercise — they're standard Ergo tokens in your wallet, composable with any Ergo dApp.
At expiration, exercise ITM options. Physical: pay stablecoin to the reserve, receive the underlying asset (rsETH, ERG, DexyGold). Cash: receive stablecoin payout based on oracle price. OTM options expire; collateral returns to writer.
Options give you the right — but not the obligation — to buy or sell an asset at a set price before a set date. They're the most versatile instrument in finance. Here'severything you need to start.
A call gives the right to buy at the strike — profit when price goes up. A put gives the right to sell — profit when price goes down. Writers take the opposite side and earn premium upfront. The buyer's max loss is the premium paid; the writer's max loss is the collateral locked.
Read guide →The premium is what buyers pay writers for the contract. It's driven by three forces: intrinsic value (how far in-the-money), time value (longer expiry = more expensive), and volatility (wilder price swings = more expensive). On Etcha, premiums are denominated in stablecoins.
Read guide →Writers lock collateral and collect premiums — like being a landlord of financial contracts. Covered calls on tokens you already hold generate income in flat markets. Cash-secured puts let you get paid to wait for your target buy price. Both strategies work on Etcha.
Read guide →Physical settlement means the writer locks the actual underlying asset (rsETH, ERG, DexyGold) as collateral. At exercise, the buyer pays stablecoin and receives the asset directly from the reserve. Cash settlement means the writer locks stablecoins and the oracle determines the payout. Both modes, same smart contracts.
Read guide →Holding ERG but worried about a drawdown? Buy a put to lock in a floor price. Want gold exposure but scared of a dip before you buy? Buy a call to cap your entry price. Options let you define your worst case in advance for a known cost.
Read guide →Traditional options need brokers, clearinghouses, margin accounts, and KYC. DeFi options replace all of that with smart contracts: collateral is locked programmatically, settlement is trustless, and anyone can participate — write, buy, or provide liquidity. No permission needed.
Read guide →Every step explained — from locking collateral to exercising options. What happens on-chain, what the bot does, and why you don't need to trust anyone.
Lock collateral, mint tokens, deliver to wallet. One signature — the bot handles the rest. Three TXs, all enforced by contract.
Read guide →List tokens at your price in SigUSD or USE. Buyers purchase from the sell order. Partial fills supported.
Read guide →Exercise in-the-money options. Close expired reserves. Refund before mint. Every path explained.
Read guide →Cancel sell orders anytime. Full fee breakdown. Complete token flow diagram.
Read guide →Open source, permissionless, trustless. Anyone can run it. If it disappears, nothing is lost.
Read guide →The smart contract is the only thing you trust. Full security model and glossary.
Read guide →Etcha is designed so that once deployed, it runs without any team intervention. Every component is either on-chain code or a permissionless off-chain bot that anyone can operate.
All option logic — collateral locking, exercise conditions, expiration, settlement — lives in ErgoScript smart contracts. Immutable once deployed. No proxy patterns, no upgrade keys.
Strike prices and settlement values come from Ergo's decentralized oracle pools. Crypto, commodities, and indices — all verifiable on-chain. No single-source dependency.
Open-source bots handle the operational plumbing — minting tokens, delivering to writers, closing expired contracts. Anyone can run one. If the team disappears tomorrow, the protocol still works.
Write options on any token Rosen Bridge has brought to Ergo — rsETH, rsBTC, rsADA, rsBNB, rsDOGE. The bridge brings assets on-chain; the option contract holds them as collateral. Real tokens, not synthetics.
Standard Ergo tokens — composable with any dApp in the ecosystem as liquidity grows. Built on Ergo's UTXO model for maximum interoperability.
Connect Nautilus. Trade. That's it. No registration, no custodians, no identity verification. Your keys, your contracts, your settlement.
Most DeFi options protocols are vault-based or orderbook-based, crypto-only, and rely on centralized components. Etcha is different on every axis.
| Protocol | Chain | Architecture | Commodities | Physical Settlement | Stablecoin Settle | Permissionless |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Etcha | Ergo | P2P + Pool | ✓ | ✓ rsTokens | ✓ SigUSD/USE | ✓ Fully |
| Derive | Arbitrum L2 | CLOB Orderbook | — | — | ✓ USDC | — Gated |
| Aevo | Aevo L2 | Hybrid Orderbook | — | — | ✓ USDC | — NFT Pass |
| Panoptic | Ethereum | Uniswap V3 LP | — | — | — | ✓ |
| Stryke | Arbitrum | SSOV Vaults | — | — | — | — |
| Premia/Kyan | Arbitrum | AMM + OB | — | — | ✓ | — |
| SigmaO † | Ergo | P2P | — | — | — ERG only | ✓ |
† SigmaO — discontinued. Etcha P2P contracts are modeled on the SigmaO architecture.
Connect Nautilus. Write your first contract. No registration, no approval, no databases. Just code and stablecoins.