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Become a maker

A maker quotes a Stoa pool: a bid and an ask, with sizes, refreshed every block. When a swap comes in, the router compares that quote with every other venue and fills against it when it is the best price. The pool earns the spread: it buys below the market and sells above it.

A curator owns a pool's inventory and keeps what the spread earns; a maker is the wallet that posts the quotes. Usually they are the same team. See Become a curator for the pool side.

What each network asks of a maker

Elysium Robinhood Chain
Pools WHYPE/USDC is live and waiting for makers (0x7800…400a); more pairs on request The first maker pool opens with the first maker; tell us the pair
Bond 10 HYPE per pool, in the MakerRegistry $STOA, one bond for all your pools, in the BondRegistry. Each pool sets its minimum when it is listed
Withdrawing a bond 3 days 3 days
A slashed bond Goes to the treasury Is burned
Gas HYPE ETH

Steps

  1. Apply. DM @StoaDEX with the pair, your price source, the size you want to quote and your maker address.
  2. Pool. Quote an existing pool, or have a pool deployed for your pair with you as its owner, so the inventory and the spread are yours.
  3. Listing and approval. The admin Safe lists the pool, sets its minimum bond and approves your maker address through the 48-hour timelock; a new pool also goes through the router's 24-hour wait before swaps can use it. About three days in all, every step public on-chain (Admin and permissions).
  4. Bond. On Elysium, call bond(pool) on the MakerRegistry and send at least 10 HYPE. On Robinhood Chain, approve $STOA and call bond(amount) on the BondRegistry, or use the bond panel on the $STOA page.
  5. Inventory. The pool's owner sends both tokens of the pair to the pool. Only the owner can take them out (withdraw).
  6. Quote. Start the Maker kit with DRY_RUN=1 first, then live. Your pool shows in Pools once quotes are flowing.

You can quote only while all three hold: the pool is listed, your address is approved for it, and your bond is at least the pool's minimum.

How a quote works

// prices: quote-token raw units per 1e18 raw base units
function setQuote(uint128 bidPx, uint128 askPx, uint96 bidSize, uint96 askSize, uint8 validBlocks) external;
function cancelQuote() external;
  • askPx must be above bidPx, and bidPx above zero.
  • validBlocks is 1 or 2 (the pool's maxValidBlocks, 2 today): a quote expires on its own after that, about 200 to 400 ms on Elysium and 500 ms on Robinhood Chain, which counts its own 250 ms blocks. A bot that crashes stops quoting by itself.
  • Each fill uses up the quoted size on its side. A new setQuote replaces the old quote.
  • The maker, the pool owner or the guardian can pull the quote at any moment with cancelQuote.
  • A pool can have a quote guard that rejects prices too far from an independent reference (Build a price provider), and a cap on one swap's size (500 USDC on WHYPE/USDC today).
  • Swaps against the pool pay the pool's 2 bps fee to Stoa's fee contract.

Slashing and leaving

A maker that posts clearly abusive prices can be slashed: part or all of its bond, by the owner, which is the 48-hour timelock. Withdrawing a bond takes 3 days (requestUnbond, wait, then withdrawUnbonded), longer than the timelock, so a slash always lands before a maker can leave.

Risks for a maker

Quoting is not free money. The inventory can lose value when prices move, a slow or wrong price feed gets picked off, and a bad quote can cost the bond. The Maker kit stops quoting on a stale or jumping price, limits how much inventory one side can take and halts at a daily loss limit, but the risk stays with the maker.

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