Deposit USE stablecoin. The pool writes covered options across the Rosen Bridge ecosystem. LPs earn the net of premiums collected minus payouts — no custody, no operator, no KYC.
The pool runs a covered options writing strategy. Six steps, fully on-chain:
LPs deposit USE stablecoin into a smart contract
An autonomous bot writes European cash-settled options on oracle feeds — ERG, BTC, ETH, ADA, DOGE, BNB, CKB, FIRO, HNS
Each option is priced at 130% of Black-Scholes fair value — the 30% markup is the pool's structural edge, enforced on-chain. The contract refuses any option priced below this floor.
Option buyers pay premium upfront in USE
At expiry, the pool pays out on in-the-money options and keeps the premium on the rest. Settlement uses a 70/30 spot/TWAP blend to dampen flash-pump exploitation.
Net premium income accrues to LP token value. Deposit or withdraw at any time.
Why 130% and not higher? At 200% markup the exercise rate drops to 8% — buyers stop returning and the market dies. At 130%, the exercise rate is ~25–30%. Buyers get fair enough pricing to sustain demand; the pool retains structural edge over thousands of cycles. The markup was determined by backtesting 40,320 parameter combinations — not set arbitrarily.
4.2 years of daily data (Jan 2022 – Mar 2026), $50K USE pool equivalent, 130% B-S markup, 70/30 TWAP blend, 7–14 day expiries, tight ATM strike ladder. The test period includes crypto bear markets, flash crashes, and sustained rallies across all assets.
| Asset | Status | Ann. Return | Sharpe | Max DD | Exercise Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ERG | Launch | 19.0% | 1.56 | 6.3% | 29.1% |
| DOGE | Launch | 16.1% | 1.26 | 7.3% | 24.2% |
| ADA | Launch | 14.4% | 1.13 | 6.2% | 29.1% |
| ETH | Launch | 11.9% | 1.15 | 7.7% | 20.5% |
| BNB | Launch | 10.0% | 1.27 | 5.0% | 12.6% |
| BTC | Launch | 9.4% | 1.54 | 5.1% | 13.9% |
Average: 13.5% annualized · 1.32 Sharpe
| Asset | Status | Ann. Return (calls only) | Sharpe | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CKB | Calls only | 27.2% | 1.47 | Puts auto-enabled by trend gate when stable |
| FIRO | Calls only | 25.8% | 0.84 | Calls-only at launch |
| HNS | Calls only | 23.7% | 1.18 | Calls-only at launch |
Average: 25.6% annualized · 1.16 Sharpe · Calls-only returns are high because these assets experienced 5–49× price drawdowns during the test period — selling calls into a downtrend expires worthless at an exceptional rate. Puts are disabled until price stabilization.
| Asset | Status | Ann. Return | Sharpe | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATOM | Future | 13.1% | 0.98 | Pending Cosmos bridge mainnet |
| RON | Future | 23.3% (calls only) | 1.36 | Pending Cosmos bridge mainnet |
Honest caveat: The backtest uses daily close prices and misses intraday spikes real buyers would exercise against. Real-world returns are likely 10–30% lower than backtested figures. The 50% fill rate assumption is untested against real buyer demand. Adverse selection (informed buyers) is not modeled — the 130% markup is the buffer, but it doesn't eliminate the risk. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
| Strategy | Est. Return | Risk | Liquidity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hold stablecoin (SigUSD/USE) | 0% | Low | High |
| Ergo DeFi lending | 3–8% | Low–Med | Medium |
| EtchaPool (this) | ~14–18% | Med | Medium |
| Leveraged yield farming | 10–30% | High | Low–Med |
| Crypto spot holding | Volatile | High | High |
Comparison returns are illustrative estimates. EtchaPool return range represents the 6-asset Rosen mainnet basket average (13.5%) weighted toward higher-vol assets including Rosen pending.
Every asset that bridges to Ergo gains an instant options market. The pool is designed as infrastructure for the Rosen Bridge ecosystem, not a standalone yield product. As bridge adoption grows and new assets reach mainnet, the pool adds them to its writing set — without LPs needing to provide new capital. The addressable market scales automatically with the bridge.
CKB, FIRO, and HNS are in active Rosen Bridge testing with mainnet release imminent. Offering options on day one of bridge mainnet launch creates a compelling reason to move liquidity through Ergo. These are the first native options markets for these tokens anywhere.
LP tokens are burned on withdrawal and USE is returned at current NAV. There is no admin key that can pause the pool, freeze withdrawals, or change the rules. The contract is immutable once deployed.
A 10% fee on collected premiums routes to a developer LP position each time an option is purchased from the pool. This is the only compensation mechanism for the protocol developer.
Why fee-at-sale, not fee-at-deploy. The pool only earns when options are actually purchased. Collecting a dev fee on options that never sell would dilute LPs for zero benefit to anyone. PoolFixedPriceSell.es ensures the fee is only triggered when real premium hits the pool — dev earns when LPs earn, nothing otherwise.
Transparency commitment. The fee rate, dev multisig address, and all LP token minting events are visible on-chain from day one. The dev wallet balance and its share of pool NAV are public. The lock on dev LP withdrawal is a public commitment enforced by social accountability and on-chain visibility — not a contract guarantee in v1. A stricter on-chain lock is planned for v2.
16+ assets, physical and cash settlement, SigUSD/USE denominated. Full educational front-end and writing wizard. Permissionless settlement bots. All Rosen L1s accessible.
PoolState.es, PoolOptionReserve.es, OptionEscrow.es, ProxyDeposit.es, ProxyWithdraw.es — all written and audited. 40,320-combination backtest complete. V6+V7 contract fixes (required for micro-price assets CKB, HNS) in progress before deployment.
Market-making bot framework complete — needs end-to-end mainnet testing. Pool deployment pending V6+V7 backport and initial liquidity seed. etcha.io DNS migration on this milestone.
Rosen pending assets (CKB, FIRO, HNS) added as calls-only on bridge mainnet. On-chain directional trend gate shipped — automatically enables puts per-asset once price stabilization is observed. No manual intervention.
ATOM and RON added once Cosmos bridge (degens.world) reaches mainnet. Multi-TWAP companion box enables 30-day options tranche.
The backtest was run on a $50K pool — that's the number that produces the figures above. A smaller seed works but generates proportionally lower absolute premium volume. This is not a grant: depositors receive LP tokens, earn yield, and can withdraw. The ask is for initial TVL, not development funds.
Consensus, censorship resistance, UTXO finality.
21 price feeds, bonded operator keys, median aggregation. No single-source dependency. Oracle code is open source.
All capital-affecting operations are fully permissionless and verified on-chain. Only one spend path (parameter update) requires an operator signature — and it cannot touch LP capital. No admin key, no kill switch, no upgrade proxy. Once deployed, frozen.
There is no DAO vote, no multisig, no centralized admin. If the team disappears tomorrow, existing options continue to exercise and expire normally. New deployments need a running bot — anyone can run one.
Sharp moves outpacing TWAP dampening can cause the pool to pay out more than collected premiums. Historical backtest worst-case drawdown: ~7.7% (ETH). Conservative per-feed exposure limits are the primary mitigation.
Informed buyers with better short-term directional views will buy options more likely to pay out. The 130% markup is the structural buffer — it raises buyer break-even but does not eliminate the risk.
Contracts completed two-pass automated audit with all critical issues resolved. No external firm audit yet. Bugs could result in partial or total loss of funds. Codebase is fully open source.
If reserve is fully deployed into options, withdrawals above the 5% liquid floor are queued until options expire. Worst case: up to 2 weeks. Not triggered in any backtest scenario.
Wrong oracle prices produce wrong settlements. The oracle is multi-operator and bonded, but not immune to operator collusion or source compromise. TWAP blend provides partial protection against short-duration manipulation.
The pool has not been deployed on mainnet before. Early LPs take on protocol maturity risk. Initial deployment uses a small seed while monitoring before opening to larger deposits.
This document is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Backtested performance is hypothetical. Cryptocurrency derivatives carry significant risk including potential total loss of principal. Do your own research.