ARCH
Architecture

Four parts. One direction of travel.

ARCH is not a treasury with a policy. It is a set of Robinhood Chain programs whose only legal moves are the ones described here. This page is the mechanism; the Archpaper is the argument.

Immutable core24h timelockGuarded launchPermissionless distribution
$ARCH
The ERC-20 token

Burned by the Buttress and by claims. Supply only goes down.

The Vault
The ETH backing every ARCH

Leaves in exactly one way: a holder burns ARCH for their share. No admin key.

The Buttress
A pot of ETH with one legal move

Buys ARCH during 30%+ crashes, burns 100% of it. Cannot be withdrawn.

The Keystone
The allocation engine

Splits all incoming revenue 50 / 40 / 10. Anyone can trigger distribution.

01 / ROUTER

The allocation engine

Revenue arrives from creator fees on the ARCH venue, or from anyone topping the machine up with ETH directly. The Keystone does not decide anything — it applies a fixed ratio and nothing else.

  • 50%Vaultclaimable ETH backing
  • 40%Buttressbuy-and-burn ammunition
  • 5%Communitygrowth and incentives
  • 5%Operationsdevelopment and infra
REVENUEcreator fees + ETHROUTER50 / 40 / 10VAULT · 50%claimable backingGRID · 40%buys + burns in crashesCOMM + TEAM · 10%operations

Permissionless distribution. Once revenue accumulates, any wallet can call the distribute instruction and the split executes. The team cannot sit on undistributed funds, because sitting on them is not a privilege the program grants anyone.

02 / VAULT

Backing with exactly one exit

The Vault holds the ETH that backs every circulating ARCH. It has a single outbound path, and that path belongs to holders.

Exit pathBurn ARCH → receive V × B / S, minus a fixed 1% that stays inside.
Admin keyNone. There is no owner instruction that can move Vault ETH.
PauseNone. Claiming cannot be halted, throttled, or queued.
BorrowingThe Buttress has no instruction that reads or debits the Vault.
Ratio directionRevenue in, supply down, fees retained — one direction only.
V × B / S
Claim formula
Fixed at deploy. Not a parameter.
1%
Claim fee
Withheld and left in the Vault.
0
Admin exits
No instruction can move Vault ETH out.

An emergency switch must never become a way to freeze or seize holder backing, so there is not one. The trade-off is deliberate: the Vault gives up the ability to be rescued in exchange for the guarantee that it cannot be captured.

03 / GRID

Ammunition that cannot be farmed

A bid that is permanently parked is a target. The Buttress is awake continuously but commits only on real damage — measured against a slow-moving, time-averaged reference that a single trade cannot move.

Shot size vs. drawdown
0.00%0.60%1.25%1.90%2.50%30% GATEEASE-OFF0%30%50%70%85%100%DRAWDOWN FROM ESTABLISHED TERRITORY

Velocity can scale a shot up to 2× on top of this curve, but never past the 2.50% per-shot cap and never below the gate. Under guarded launch the whole curve is halved.

0.60%
Base shot
of Buttress balance
2.50%
Max shot
hard per-shot cap
6%
Daily budget
per rolling day
30s
Cooldown
between shots
~4%
Impact cap
of pool liquidity
30%
Drawdown gate
below reference

Untrusted automation

Off-chain automation may propose a shot. The program re-derives the drawdown, the velocity multiplier, the cooldown and every cap on-chain before spending a wei. A lying proposer gets a failed transaction.

Impact-capped execution

A shot is additionally bounded by roughly 4% of pool liquidity, so the Buttress can never move price against itself or hand a sandwich to whoever is watching the mempool.

Everything is burned

There is no Buttress instruction that transfers ARCH anywhere except the burn. The tokens it buys stop existing in the same transaction that buys them.

04 / INVARIANTS

What a timelock cannot reach

Adjustable parameters — shot sizes, cooldowns, caps — are owned by a 24-hour timelock, so every change is public a full day before it can execute. These four are not parameters.

  • 01Vault ETH can never fund the Buttress.
  • 02Buttress ETH can never reach the team.
  • 03Everything the Buttress buys must be burned.
  • 04The claim formula is fixed forever.
50%
To the Vault
Claimable ETH backing for every holder.
40%
To the Buttress
Buyback and burn. Fires on real drawdowns, not on a schedule.
10%
Community + ops
5% community, 5% operations and development. In the open.