Oath, explained.
Fixed-term, fixed-cost, no-liquidation cash against tokenised stocks on Robinhood Chain. Small immutable engine, explicit accounting, nothing hidden.
Overview
An Oath deal is one bag of collateral, one cap, one date. A borrower pledges a stock token and receives USDG. The cost is fixed at the start and never grows. Until the date, no function exists that can move the collateral except the borrower paying the cap. On the date the borrower has already decided: either they paid and took the stock back, or they did not and the lenders split it.
There is no oracle, no margin call, no liquidation, and no admin path to funds. The engine has no owner. The only owned contract is the registry, which decides what can be listed in future, never what happens to an existing deal.
How a deal works
| Step | What happens | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · List | Borrower escrows collateral with an ask, a cap, a term and a funding window. | 12.5 NVDA · ask 1,814.88 · cap 1,824.00 · 7d |
| 2 · Fill | Lenders fund any amount ≥ 10% of the ask (or the remainder). Up to 10 lenders. Anyone can pull out before it fills. | 907.44 + 453.72 + 453.72 |
| 3 · Activate | At 100%, the 1% fee goes to the fee sink, the rest is credited to the borrower, and expiry = now + term. | borrower credited 1,796.73 |
| 4a · Reclaim | Before expiry the reclaim holder pays the cap; it is split pro-rata to lenders; collateral returns. | pay 1,824.00 → NVDA back |
| 4b · Claim | At or after expiry anyone can trigger the claim; collateral is split pro-rata to lenders. | lenders receive 12.5 NVDA |
Deadlines are exclusive: a deal is repayable while now < expiry and claimable once now ≥ expiry. There is no grace period. If a listing does not fill inside its window, anyone can call lapse, which refunds every pledge and returns the collateral. The borrower can cancel at any time before activation with the same effect.
Borrowing
Choose a token on the registry, an amount, the USDG you want (the ask), what you will pay to get the collateral back (the cap), a term (7, 14 or 30 days) and a funding window (up to 72 hours). The cap may not exceed the ask by more than the registry maximum (20% at launch). Suggested caps: up to 85% of value for large-cap stocks and ETFs.
Once active, USDG sits in your engine balance; withdraw it from Portfolio. Before expiry you can pay the cap and reclaim, top up collateral, transfer the reclaim right, or list it for sale. After expiry you can do nothing: the collateral belongs to the lenders as soon as one of them, or anyone, calls claim.
Standing offers
A lender can post an offer instead of waiting for listings: a token, a price in USDG per whole share, a fixed cost in basis points, a term, a minimum take and a total amount. The USDG is escrowed in the engine. A borrower takes the offer with any amount of collateral whose value at the offer price is between the minimum take and what remains. The deal activates in that same transaction: no window, no waiting. When the remainder falls below the minimum take, the offer closes and the dust is returned to the lender. Offers expire after at most 30 days and can be cancelled at any time for the unused amount.
Lending
Fund part or all of a listing. Your return is the fixed cost times your share; if the borrower walks away, you receive the same share of the collateral. A listing pledge can be withdrawn until the deal activates. Consider the cap as a share of value, the term, the liquidity of the token on Robinhood Chain, and whether you would be happy holding it. Stock tokens can lose value below the cap; that is your risk, not the borrower's.
Reclaim rights and lender shares
The borrower's right to reclaim is transferable. The holder can set a price; a buyer pays it (0.5% fee from the seller) and becomes the new reclaim holder. Buying the right does not repay the loan or change the cap: the buyer must still pay the full cap before expiry. This is how a borrower who cannot repay can still capture the difference between the collateral value and the cap.
Each lender share is likewise transferable. The lender sets a price for their whole share; a buyer pays it and steps into every right the share carries: pro-rata repayment, or pro-rata collateral. The Earn vault uses the same mechanism to raise liquidity without touching a borrower.
Earn vault
Oath Earn is an ERC-4626 vault on USDG. Share price = (idle USDG + principal of open deals at cost) / shares. A curator funds listings from the open market, up to 128 open deals. Nothing about a deal is read on deposit or withdraw; every outcome is booked by an explicit settle: profit when the cap is paid, a write-off when the borrower walks away, a refund when a listing unwinds. A performance fee (10% at launch, hard cap 50%) applies to realised profit only. Withdrawals come from idle liquidity. Recovered collateral is held by the vault and can only be sold through an allow-listed swap target with a minimum-out check.
Fees and parameters
| Origination | 1.00% of the ask, taken at activation (hard cap 2%) |
| Secondary sale | 0.50% of price on reclaim-right and share sales, paid by seller (hard cap 2%) |
| Earn performance fee | 10% of realised profit (hard cap 50%). No deposit or withdraw fee. |
| Terms | 7, 14, 30 days (registry may allow 1–60) |
| Max fixed cost | 20% per term |
| Min ask / take | 50 USDG |
| Funding window | up to 72 hours |
| Min fill | 10% of ask or the exact remainder · max 10 lenders |
| Grace | none |
Fees flow to FeeSink, which can only forward to the treasury address. There is no protocol token.
Contracts
OathCore — the engine: listings, offers, funding, reclaim, claim, top-ups, the two secondary markets and pull-based withdrawals. No owner, no upgrade, no pause on anything already open. CollateralRegistry — owner-controlled token and term allowlist, fee and limit settings, pause for new listings and offers only. OathEarn — ERC-4626 vault. FeeSink — receives fees, sweeps to treasury.
Addresses are listed live on Protocol. Source is in the repository under contracts/ with a Foundry test suite; verify on Blockscout after deployment.
Risk disclosure
Stock tokens on Robinhood Chain are obligations of their issuer that track a reference security; they carry no shareholder rights. Their price can move sharply, including outside US market hours, and DEX liquidity can be thin. Lenders may end up holding tokens worth less than the cap. Borrowers who miss the deadline lose the collateral entirely; there is no grace period and no partial repayment. The contracts are new and not yet audited. Nothing here is investment advice. Use only what you can afford to lose.
FAQ
Can I repay early?+
Yes, at any time before expiry, for the same cap. The cost is fixed, not pro-rated.
Can I extend?+
Not in place. Reclaim and list again, or sell the reclaim right to someone who can pay the cap.
What if only part of my ask fills?+
Nothing is lent until 100% fills. If the window passes, everything unwinds with no fee.
Why a 10% minimum fill?+
It bounds every deal at 10 lenders so that settlement loops are cheap and can never be blocked.
Who can call claim?+
Anyone. This means a lender cannot be griefed by other lenders, and a keeper can settle deals in bulk.
Where do fees go?+
To the FeeSink contract, which can only forward them to the protocol treasury.