The OATH Foundation is the organization that manages and develops the OATH Ecosystem. It funds and supports protocol development and maintenance, while also establishing transparent and decentralized governance processes. The foundation collaborates with experienced contractors to ensure the efficient and secure operation of each protocol. ^[1]

Overview

The OATH Ecosystem is a DeFi ecosystem powered by its own token, OATH.

Governance

The governance structure of the OATH protocol is divided into two phases. ^[2][3]

Phase I

Phase I involves the following elements:

1. Governance Proposal Review Committee: This committee evaluates and assesses governance proposals presented by the community. Its role is to ensure proposals align with set criteria and the protocol's goals.

2. OATH Governance Forum: Intended for all OATH contributors and users, this forum serves as a platform for open discussions and idea-sharing related to governance. The objective is to translate the protocol's future vision into practical strategies.

3. Snapshot Voting Platform: This platform enables token holders to vote on governance proposals. It ensures inclusivity and representation in decision-making.

Phase II

Phase II introduces the following changes:

1. Mandatory Community Delegate Election: This requires the election of community delegates responsible for representing the wider community's interests in governance matters.

2. Increase in MIT (Minimum Inflation Threshold): The MIT is raised, potentially indicating a higher bar for impactful proposals.

3. Minimum Number of OATH/bOATH Holding Wallets: Participation in proposal votes requires a minimum number of wallets holding OATH or bOATH tokens. This aims to involve a diverse group of stakeholders.

OATH's entire community, including contributors and users, is encouraged to participate in the OATH Governance Forum. This participation aids in shaping the protocol's future and contributing to its development through active engagement in governance discussions and decisions.

OATH Token

The OATH token serves as a decentralized governance token, responsible for overseeing the management of the Reaper Farm, Ethos Finance, and Digit protocols, along with any forthcoming platforms in the OATH ecosystem. ^[1]

Reaper

Reaper.Farm originally operated as a yield aggregator but has now evolved into an asset management protocol. This allows users to earn yield while reducing the risk associated with custody. The protocol is powered by open smart contract systems and is managed by a network of algorithmic keeper infrastructure. ^[1]

On July 27, 2023, Reaper launched five new multistrategy vaults on its Arbitrum deployment: WETH, USDC, USDT, DAI & ARB. The new vaults, which will exclusively supply to Granary, are part of the migration from LP compounding solutions to industrial protocol-to-protocol and user asset management solutions. ^[6]

In addition, the new Reaper Multistrategy Vaults will be integrated into Balancer to offer yield for liquidity providers on the platform. ^[6]

Ethos Reserve

The Ethos Reserve functions as a stablecoin system, capable of accommodating a wide array of collateral types and employing Reaper's asset management technology to rehypothecate reserve assets. This approach leads to the establishment of competitive interest rates, extended timeframes for liquidity providers, and increased earnings for those participating in liquidity provision. ^[1]

In April 2023, Ethos pledged to distribute up to $4.4 million worth of OP and OATH tokens to liquidity providers of $ERN, a next-generation stablecoin built on Optimism, as part of a 12-month long program to incentivize DeFi adoption on the layer 2 network. ^[8]

“We’re excited to give Ethos Reserve a chance to bring new incentives to users in the Optimism ecosystem,”.

“We’ve seen significant growth in decentralized finance within our own community and in L2s more broadly, and we’re proud to see Ethos continuing that trend on Optimism.” - said Ben Jones, director at the Optimism Foundation^[8]

Incentives are to be distributed to $ERN liquidity providers through platforms such as Digit.xyz, BeethovenX, and Velodrome. ^[8]

Digit Finance

Digit functions as a protocol aiming to establish balanced incentives between liquidity providers in the DeFi sector and the protocols they utilize. Utilizing its unique accounting system, Digit has the capacity to replicate the market effects typically associated with a high convexity bond in terms of appreciation, while also mimicking the diminishing duration aspect found in a low convexity bond—yet without the necessity of using an actual bond. ^[1]

Tokenomics

The OATH token is accessible across different blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Metis, BNB Smart Chain, Fantom, and Kava. The OATH tokenomics aims for gradual, long-term growth, featuring a total token supply of 400,000,000. This supply is distributed as: ^[1]

- 30% (120,000,000 tokens) for incentives.
- 20% (80,000,000 tokens) for the Liquidity Generation Event (LGE).
- 13.7% (54,800,000 tokens) for initial liquidity.
- 12.6% (50,400,000 tokens) for vested allocations to contributors.
- 11.5% (46,000,000 tokens) for attracting new talent.
- 8.8% (35,200,000 tokens) for market making.
- 3.5% (14,000,000 tokens) for marketing.

The OATH token has never had tokenomics in the traditional sense. With a data-driven “minimum viable issuance” strategy and a growing supply of veNFTs, the circulating supply of OATH has actually shrunk since its inception over a year ago. This has happened despite millions of dollars worth of incentives issued to users through our DEX partners. - the team stated in its blog posted on August 27, 2023^[5]

OATHv2

In August 2023, the OATH Foundation proposed the token migration from OATHv1 to OATHv2. To ensure clarity during the migration process, OATH tokens will be designated as OATHv1, accompanied by a red dot. As the migration progresses, users will notice the introduction of OATHv2 tokens, distinguished by a green dot. Once the migration is completed, OATHv2 tokens will revert back to being labeled as OATH, resuming the standard branding. ^[4]

oOATH

oTokens, also called Option Tokens, are ERC-20 contracts that act as perpetual call options for their parent token. When users receive oOath, they gain the right to exercise an option at any time to purchase OATH at a discounted price. The team aims to add an alternative to exercising the oToken normally to encourage users to create and stake bOATH tokens. ^[5]

Reliquary: DeFi’s New Yield Primitive

Reliquary was introduced on August 11, 2023, as a DeFi-native solution to the issues caused by current incentive systems. It strikes a balance between bonding and liquidity mining, providing the protocol-level advantages of the former and the flexibility of the latter. The outcome is similar to a liquid floating-rate bond, which gains convexity over time, aligning the protocol with its liquidity providers better than ever before. The longer a user holds a Relic, the more incentives are received. This implies that the top liquidity providers will obtain the greatest share of rewards. ^[7]

These rewards are distributed across Maturity Tranches, each of which represents a length of time a user will receive a certain level of incentives. It is done in a non-dilutive fashion, with the same amount of rewards always being emitted to the pool no matter how many users are in any tranche. ^[7]

This maturity system allows developers to program desired holding patterns into each pool, giving them unparalleled control over their incentive structures. Additionally, each user is issued a custom NFT for use in external protocols: they can lock it, lend it, or sell it on their favorite marketplace to earn a premium on their time spent in the pool. ^[7]