Summary
Pirex ETH is an Ethereum liquid staking solution that forms the foundation of the Dinero protocol. It is a two-token system, consisting of pxETH and apxETH, tailored for different user preferences. This design gives users a choice: pxETH for liquidity and DeFi yields or apxETH for boosted ETH staking yield.
pxETH and apxETH
When depositing ETH, users can choose between holding pxETH or depositing to an auto compounding rewards vault for apxETH.
pxETH is for those willing to forgo staking yield for liquidity. When users choose to hold pxETH, they’re opting to hold an ETH-pegged asset that can take advantage of opportunities throughout DeFi. These include providing liquidity, participating in lending protocols, and more. The Redacted DAO will be using its treasury and BTRFLY incentives to expand such opportunities for pxETH holders.
apxETH is for users focused on maximizing their staking yields. After minting pxETH, users can deposit to Dinero's auto-compounding rewards vault to enjoy boosted staking yields without the hassle of running their own validators. Since some users will choose to hold pxETH, each apxETH benefits from staking rewards from more than one staked ETH, amplifying the yield for apxETH users.
Deposits and the ETH Buffer
Most ETH deposited into the Dinero protocol via Pirex ETH is staked on the Ethereum network. However, a small fraction remains in an 'ETH buffer' instead of being staked. This buffer facilitates smooth staking and unstaking, allows faster ETH withdrawals when it has funds, and will support self-contained meta transactions through the Redacted Relayer RPC in the future.
Withdrawals
There are limits on the rate at which validators can enter and exit the Ethereum network, based on the total number of validators. Therefore, if there is a significant ETH unstaking queue, this can hamper the timeliness of ETH withdrawals from the Dinero protocol from the spinning down of validators. In these circumstances, an incentivized withdrawal pool can be used to improve pxETH liquidity from ETH unstaking.
Users can deposit ETH into a pool and receive rewards whilst they provide liquidity to that pool. Where there is an unstaking queue and ETH from the spinning down of validators is not readily available, ETH from this pool is provided to users in exchange for pxETH, with the exchange rate or price being determined by demand for ETH from the pool. As pxETH is redeemed and validators are spun down, ETH is replenished in the pool. Depositors into the withdrawal pool therefore receive rewards in exchange for potential ETH illiquidity.
As pricing depends on the demand for ETH in the pool, rewards on deposited ETH increase during periods of high demand, allowing the pool to scale when demand is high. This makes liquidity provision more efficient and cost effective.
Yield Stripping [Coming Soon ⚠️]
Yield from apxETH can be tokenized via yield stripping. For example, if a user wants to tokenize 1 year of yield for 1 pxETH deposited in the rewards vault, they can exchange 1 pxETH for:
- 1 pxETH principal semi-fungible token which can be exchanged for 1 pxETH in one year; and
- 1 pxETH yield semi-fungible token for each rewards period in the next year, which can be exchanged for the rewards earned by 1 pxETH in the rewards vault in one rewards period.
Users decide how many reward cycles they tokenize. These tokens can be used throughout DeFi and are tradable. Yield stripping provides users the ability to leverage, hedge, and speculate on future pxETH price and future yield.