The Copernican Model
Where you are awarded 7% for your loyalty
The Copernican Model
Over the last few months, I’ve been studying the crypto models that seem to be discussed on a "fundamentals" basis: HYPE/Aave/Venice/etc, following the users/ revenue/relationship between a useful product and its token - all to create a sort of "value accural ontology." This is a case study from that research.
The reason was more selfish: I wanted to understand which models work when your business has to interact with the "real world," namely for how we want to take @usdai_official for the most alignemnt
As a founder, I’ve had doors literally shut on my face when we started because we’re “crypto” (literally left in the waiting room like a tv show). I still believe tokenization is one of the most important technologies we have today. But the institutions we need to work with often want a equity counterparty, a board, and a contract. You just wont get around this for the next 10 years (no a cayman foundation doesnt work)
That experience has made me increasingly interested in the role of an equity surrogate: an independent operating business that connects a network to the world outside it.. but frankly there werent many clean examples out there without value destruction.
The case I keep returning to is @tradexyz and Hyperliquid.. and im not really sure they even know how symbiotic of a relationship they created. They technically SHOULD be the same team.. but they are divided across the river due to regulatory issues, while being symbiotic
Consider the S&P 500 agreement, they licensed the benchmark to tradexyz for a perpetual market: the institutional relationship sits with the company, but the product runs on the network.
tradexyz can negotiate licenses, develop products, operate markets, and build distribution. Hyperliquid provides shared execution and settlement infrastructure.
And if theres a company that ever wants "exposure" to the Hyperliquid business, but they just cant buy a "token" (and believe me, it's super super hard to get a traditional enterprise to buy a token, it doesnt fucking matter if you have an ETF, you literally have to convince a boomer board to do it and get the infrastructure set up to do it). Instaed, they could just invest in this equity, as it is not burning the HYPE it buys, but is increasing its share of it. so instead of buyback-n-burn, its closer to commit-n-compound.
I’ve started thinking about this as a value-accrual architecture, with two different forms of capital (terms best described by a16z crypto's post in 2025):
Network asset: scarcity at the core.
- Its supply discipline can become more credible, its economics more programmatic, and its operation less dependent on any single company.
- It coordinates shared infrastructure and connects activity across many businesses to a common asset.
- That is what I mean by a progressively hardening asset. The scarcity and independence have to be earned through the design of the system.
- Not capital intensive, as it must be smart contract based.
- Can often place be the seat of the "decentralized security" - as there is no central underwriter. If HYPE was a company.. itd be regulated out of the wazoo.
Enterprise equity: elasticity at the edge.
- A company can issue shares, raise capital, hire people, acquire licenses, and build products.
- Its capital structure can expand with the work required to bring the network into the real world.
- New shares dilute ownership percentages, but productive investment can increase value per share.
- That ability to finance expansion is why I think of equity as elastic
- This is the part where its OK to be regulated, because most of the regulational burden is held by HYPE, theyre just asset issuers.
These different traits are the reason to combine them.
An enterprise can raise the capital to grow while the network maintains its own supply discipline. The connection is the activity that expansion creates, and the mechanisms that route value from that activity back to the network.
Hyperliquid makes part of that relationship explicit. Trading generates fees for the deployer and the protocol. The Assistance Fund (insurance) automatically converts its allocated fees into HYPE, which the documentation specifies is burned. Hyperliquid fee mechanics
The broader strategy I take from this is Commit & Compound that is conducted around the equity enterprise. It's effectively what a DAT 2.0 would do: create a business first, then max-bid HYPE with that entity, then get new investors to invest in the convexity of HYPE^2.
Build a useful business around the network. Commit capital to its asset. Retain exposure to the infrastructure your business helps make more valuable.
For a company that accumulates and holds the network asset, growing enterprise value and participating in network value become connected opportunities. There is a business to capitalize and a shared ecosystem in which to hold an economic stake.
That is why I find the assumption that every successful application eventually needs its own token less compelling. Building a valuable company around an existing network asset is a meaningful strategy in its own right.
Notice how much kinetic language I’m using: commitment, circulation, gravity
I think network assets and enterprise assets represent different forms of gravity
HYPE is the sun: the network asset at the center
tradexyz equity is a planet: an enterprise building its business around that network
Its real-world integrations are moons: the licenses, institutional relationships, and distribution channels that gather around the enterprise and extend its reach
Enterprise value forms around network value. Real-world relationships form around enterprise value. Their activity feeds back into the shared system.
Personally, I think the greatest value can ultimately accrue at the network level. But that belief has to be substantiated by the businesses being built around it: real users, useful products, liquidity, and recurring economic activity.
A token doesn’t acquire gravity simply because we call it a network asset.
This is the distinction I found useful in a16z’s writing: can the network function and accrue value independently of the original company? Can other businesses build on it and contribute to its economics?
The company can become a great business. The network can become the foundation for many great businesses.
Scarcity at the core. Productive expansion around it.
I’ve learned a lot from this Commit & Compound structure, with a Copernican asset at the center.
It has changed how I’m thinking about USDAI and CHIP. More on that in the next post
jamaine retweeted
Be careful if you use Sentora's new Aave V4 USDe market:
Once again, Sentora chose to use a market price oracle for its USDe market on Aave, just as they did on Morpho.
This exposes high-leverage USDe loopers to a liquidation risk even if USDe remains fully backed.
For example, if some FUD around Ethena causes USDe to briefly crash to $0.94 on DEXs, high-leverage loopers might get liquidated despite USDe still being fully backed.
I am sure that the Sentora team will come and say that "this is impossible," but plenty of irrational depegs like this have happened before. Both USDC and USDT depegged in the past.
If a NAV/exchange rate oracle had been used instead, this risk could have been mitigated, as it would track USDe’s backing rather than its live market price.
And as long as USDe doesn't lose a part of its backing, borrowers would be safe from liquidation with such an oracle.
What's strange is that Sentora uses NAV/exchange rate oracles as it should for other yield-bearing collateral assets in its new Aave Hub, such as mWIN and PRIME.
But for USDe, a non-volatile collateral, it uses a market price oracle.
I can't understand the logic behind this.
But my point is that if you want to loop yield-bearing assets, do it only in markets that use exchange/NAV oracles and aren't vulnerable to market volatility.
Otherwise, you're exposing yourself to unnecessary liquidation risks.
Sentora-curated markets are now live on @aave v4.
Borrow RLUSD, PYUSD and OUSD against yield-bearing and bluechip collateral, with risk and strategies by Sentora.
🔗pro.aave.com/explore/curator…
Unironically, @Pumpfun launching perps (synthetic) exclusively for tokens launched on Pump is a ripe market.
Copy papertrade LP model but with flat USD and no loss rebates
cc @a1lon9 ^
Am I understanding this right?
✅ Kimchi signs with pumpfun for multiple millions of dollars
✅ They launch a marketing campaign + token
✅ Token runs to $43M, with 75% being bought ‘early’
✅ Today, Kimchi posts a QR code leading to a vamp and Alon RT’d
✅ Later, post is deleted
✅ Kimchi removes pumpfun from his bio
✅ Vamp token rugs, OG token down to $12.9M
Good shit twins, we ate on that 👏👏👏
jamaine retweeted
$6.7M a day to $88K a day in under a week.
That's what @papertrade_xyz paid its $PAPER stakers on the 15th vs the 21st of October.
CT has a clear culprit: the "PAPER stays non-transferable" post from the 19th. But the data actually shows that the collapse already started two days before that post. And the $62M of "revenue" that made Papertrade a top fee earner in crypto was never really revenue to begin with.
Wait what?
Let's talk about where the $62M came from.
Papertrade charges a 2% fee on realized PnL and liquidated margin, split 50/50 between stakers and the devs. Dev fees sit at $4.9M lifetime, so the entire fee pool was ~$9.8M.
The other ~$53M was LP overflow. The house LP is capped at $5M, and every dollar of net trader losses above that cap gets swept straight to stakers.
In other words: ~84% of the headline number, and 91% of what stakers actually received, was traders losing money (a lot of them on purpose, to farm PAPER), passed through to other traders. Not a take on $1.45T of volume.
That matters bc a fee business shrinks with volume, while a loss pass-through shrinks with losses. And losses stop the moment losing stops paying.
What actually broke on the 17th?
Staker income per unit of volume:
- 16 Oct: $5.02M on $96.5B = 0.52bp
- 17 Oct: $0.78M on $54.2B = 0.14bp
- 21 Oct: $88K on $19.0B = 0.05bp
Volume fell ~5x. Staker income fell ~57x (with the gap being the overflow).
The 18th to 20th bounced to $1.3M to $2.1M a day, but never back near the 15th's $6.7M.
You can even see the exact day it switched off. On the 20th, stakers still took $1.30M of $1.45M in fees, which only works with overflow running. On the 21st they took $88K of $177K. Exactly half. Fee share only, zero overflow.
So what did the transferability ban announcement actually do?
It didn't kill demand. It killed the exit.
- Paragon halted its para:PAPER pre-market perp at 22:31 UTC, a minute after the post, and settled it at $0.0263
- OI went from ~$540M to ~$296M within a day as hedged farmers unwound
- TVL sits at ~$40M, down from $102M at the peak on the 11th, with -$26.2M of net flows over 7d
Meanwhile funded accounts still grow by ~300 a day and margin in open positions holds around $6.5M. That looks like the organic floor for now, and it barely moved.
How much of the remaining ~$14B a day is organic? Honestly, nobody knows. Three identified farming wallets alone did ~$33B of volume, and the top 25 losers did ~$114B and hold ~23% of all PAPER. Anyone giving you a clean organic % is guessing.
What's PAPER worth then?
There is no spot market, so this is a "what would it be worth if it could trade" exercise.
On the fee share alone, ~$100K a day, stakers earn ~$36M a year, or ~$0.004 per PAPER. That's a ~16% yield at Paragon's $0.0263 settlement. The same settlement price was 0.4x the income run-rate on the 19th. On the fee floor it's ~6.4x. With overflow back on (more below), the last 24h annualizes to ~$250M, or ~0.9x.
My scenarios (12m staker income x multiple):
- Wipeout: $1B/day at 0.04bp = $1.5M, 4x, ~$0.0006
- Bear: $5B/day at 0.04bp = $7.3M, 4x, ~$0.003
- Base: $15B/day at 0.06bp = $33M, 6x, ~$0.019
- Bull: $30B/day at 0.2bp = $219M, 10x, ~$0.19
For reference, HYPE trades at roughly 18x annualized fees on circulating mcap.
Farming is also dead at these rates. Under the announced mint curve, one-sided loss farming costs ~$0.11 of losses per PAPER vs ~$0.004 a year of yield. A 28-year payback, which no one who does the math will go for. Even at the last 24h's overflow-boosted rate it's ~4 years.
My take?
Papertrade didn't break on the 19th. The launch economics were a loss pass-through funded by farmers, and that started running dry on the 17th. The transferability ban announcement just made it stick by removing the reason to farm.
What's left is a 1000x venue doing ~$14B a day, with a house that is structurally short the crowd's net position on ~$5M of capital. Traders are net long ~$90M of BTC, and a +1% BTC move costs the house ~$900K. Rough math: a ~5.5% pump empties the LP into the payout queue.
The one number to watch flipped while I was writing this tho: at 13:00 UTC today the LP hit the $5M cap and overflow restarted. Stakers got $694K over the last 24h, most of it in the last three hours. And the cap is still $5M on-chain, not the $10M floated on the 17th.
Also watching:
- Whether overflow holds or the LP slips back under the cap
- Staker take holding above 0.1bp on a full day
- Any move on transferability
- A second oracle event
No position, didn't farm it. It's definitely an interesting experiment tho. Just covering a 1000x casino that, as it seems for now, ran out of people paying to lose on purpose.
NFA ofc.
we are back
i made a mistake and sold too early last week
granted, it all worked out for the best
run it up (consistently)
with papertrade's upcoming PAPER emission design, total supply no longer trends towards a final number. every $ lost mints a fixed share of supply, so supply keeps scaling with activity.
the old play of grabbing as big a % of PAPER as possible and being set for life, is over. players will have to keep competing for their % of supply. stop and inflation dilutes you towards zero.
paperstrategy is built around a flywheel that never stops minting. as long as we keep minting more than the inflation, our % grows.
90-day projection at our current pace under the new curve:
stop minting: 2% → ~0.7–1.2%
paperstrategy: 2% → ~3.2-4.4%,
our share of all PAPER would double in 90 days. in PAPER count we would go from 180M to ~0.8-1B (×4 to ×5).
built to be the biggest.
cc @ssmccul & @USDai_Official
made a comment on the CHIP proposal, pending approval
done this (crypto) once so not interested in fame anymore but would appreciate transparency on this front...
Replying to @VitalikButerin
Хватит вести себя как грёбаный идиот
xitter.cf/octra/status/205974211…
Shouldn't the Paper staking rewards be determined on some WA holdings basis after the threshold is crossed @izebel_eth ?
$10 this cycle is fud
Fluid just crossed 100,000+ positions across every deployment.
With $1.77B in active loans, $FLUID is now the third largest onchain money market in all of crypto 🌊
the chinese are coming
fk yeah, $PSTR
目前来看,两个基于 @papertrade_xyz 的策略代币
@paperstrategy_ 的 $PSTR完胜,市值已经跑到4.37M
而反观 @paperdao_xyz 的 robinhood:0xbc2283d12b1f2f46c1613ae672e95c55b69ca414,则赢来了史诗级大回调,冲高1.6M后,现在已经跌去近90%。市值来到了18.8万
而且两者的储备量来看,@paperstrategy_已经拥有了1亿PAPER,而@paperdao_xyz只有500万
作为一个 robinhood:0xbc2283d12b1f2f46c1613ae672e95c55b69ca414 持有者, 接下来看 @paperdao_xyz 如何优化了
holy $82,000 buy on $PSTR
send it higher
@paperstrategy_ coded
my quant
monitoring @paperstrategy_’s positions on papertrade is super challenging and fascinating
in the last hours the market got way more volatile, so the high leverage strategies became the least profitable because of the asymmetric impact on the winning legs, while our efficiency strategy (delta neutral with low leverage, 2% target and rebalancing every 12h if the target isn't reached) is becoming the one with the best acquisition price
the papertrade team also cut the OI caps a lot (12k btc per side 2 days ago, 1.7k tonight) to avoid attacks, so our bot has to constantly take that into account when managing its positions
it's a game where we have to anticipate market volatility and pivot fast to the most optimal strategy, while not getting blocked by the relayer and the OI caps
we're doing really well so far, more stats tomorrow































