How a Launch Works
A launch moves through a fixed sequence: it gets curated, it goes live and takes bonds (ETH), it settles that ETH into a stock treasury and seeds liquidity, and then claims and trading open. Most steps after bonding are permissionless: anyone can push them along, and the code enforces the order.
The sequence
| Stage | What the user does | What happens on-chain | Key limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Curation | A creator applies | An operator (the launcher) is the only address allowed to create the launch | Curation is editorial, not financial approval |
| Launch created | none | The factory deploys the launch’s contracts and opens the bonding window | Deployment is one-shot; the contracts are not upgradeable |
| Bonding | Bond ETH | Your ETH is recorded; your bond weight is added | Per-wallet cap applies; a bond that would exceed the total cap reverts entirely |
| Close | none (permissionless) | A platform bond fee is taken; the rest splits between the stock treasury and the liquidity pool; tokens are minted | Closes at the time limit or the instant the cap is hit exactly |
| Conversion | none (keeper / permissionless) | Staged ETH is swapped to the tokenized stock in slippage-bounded chunks, into the treasury | Each swap must clear an oracle-derived floor or it reverts; funding is not instant |
| Liquidity live | Trade | The pool and its fee hook open: this happens at close, before claims | Trading can be live before the treasury is fully funded |
| Claims live | Claim your tokens | Once the treasury is funded and liquidity is live, claims open | One claim per address; a launch that never reaches this state can unwind to refunds |
Bonding, in more detail
- The window. Bonding runs for a fixed duration set at launch, or ends early the moment total bonds hit the cap.
- Your weight. Your bond weight equals the ETH you bond.
- Caps. There is a per-wallet cap and a total cap, both set at launch. An over-cap bond reverts as a whole transaction.
- Underfill and zero bonds. A launch that closes under its cap still settles on whatever was bonded. A launch with zero bonds has nothing to settle.
Settlement and conversion
At close, the bonded ETH is split three ways: a platform bond fee, a backing portion, and a liquidity portion. The backing portion is staged and then converted to the tokenized stock and delivered to the treasury; the liquidity portion seeds the pool.
Conversion is deliberately gradual. The stock pools on Robinhood Chain are thin, so the backing is bought in chunks, each one bounded by an oracle-derived slippage floor. A chunk that would fill worse than that floor reverts and waits, so a launch’s treasury fills over a series of transactions, not in one block.
Claims, trading, and redemption open at different times
- Trading opens at close. The pool and its fee hook go live when the launch closes, sometimes before the treasury is fully funded.
- Claims open after funding. Bonders can claim their tokens once the treasury is funded and liquidity is live. Anyone can trigger this step.
- Redemption is not gated on claims. Redeeming burns tokens for a share of the treasury and works as soon as the treasury holds stock, independent of whether claims are open.
What can go wrong
If a launch does not reach the claims-live state within its settlement deadline, anyone can put it into refund mode.
In refund mode, bonders reclaim their share of whatever assets are still recoverable from the launch’s contracts, pro-rata by ETH bonded. This is a partial unwind, not a guaranteed full refund: liquidity that was already seeded into the pool is locked and is not part of the refund, and any trades or redemptions that already happened are not reversed. A launch reaches either the claims-live state or the refund state, never both.