Trading
This page outlines some features that all traders should know before making a trade on the Lyra Protocol.
Options that are shorted (sold) to the AMM by users need to be collateralized. By selling an option, a trader is now responsible for the payout to the AMM at settlement so they need to post collateral to cover the short option.
Newport allows users to partially collateralize their shorts, greatly improving capital efficiency. This would mean, selling 1 ETH call would require, say, 0.4 ETH - a substantial improvement over V1. Further, short calls will now be able to be collateralized in either the base (ETH, BTC, etc) or quote asset (USDC or sUSD). Short puts will only be able to be collateralized with the quote asset.
When a user collateralizes an option with a quote asset (USDC, sUSD), the premium is received upfront. This means that a trader shorting an option will have their premium added to their collateral and have a debt to the system which fluctuates based on the value of the short option. The flow is as follows: the trader wants to sell an option worth $100, they collateralize it with $1000, send $900 to the contract and keep the $100 premium. The trader now owes a debt of the value of the options (currently $100). If the option settles OTM, the trader will receive $1000, if the option expires ITM, say $200, the trader will receive $800 at expiry.
When a user collateralizes an option with a base (ETH, BTC, etc) asset, instead of the premium being added to their collateral, it is simply sent to their wallet. At expiry, if the option is ITM, the dollar value is removed from their collateral, e.g. the option settles at $200, ETH is worth $2000; they have posted 0.5 ETH as collateral. They will receive back ~0.4 ETH (less swapping fees).
Users will always have the option to fully collateralize their shorts (and so have no chance of being liquidated - see next section). In order to use partial collateralization, a user must deposit a minimum amount of collateral.
The minimum amount of collateral (in the base asset) for a short is computed by finding the premium of the same option with a time-dependent shock volatility and a static percentage shock to the spot price. Specifically, the minimum amount of collateral required will be given by:
Where
MinStaticCollateral is the absolute minimum amount of collateral required for any (partially collateralized) short. Here, ShockVol is a large, time-dependent static volatility while SpotShock is a static percentage shock to the spot price.Users must maintain at least the minimum amount of collateral or they will be liquidated by a liquidator. For more details on this, see the next section on Liquidations.
When a user's collateral falls below the minimum collateral (described in the previous section) they are eligible to be liquidated. This occurs via keepers, users who call the liquidation function on an underwater position.
When a user is liquidated, the user is forced to buy back their option in such a way that will (in expectancy) favour the AMM/LPs.
The user's remaining liquidity will then be penalized by a flat percentage, for more detail see Partial Collateralization Parameters. This slashed penalty will then be split between the liquidator, the AMM, and the security module.
The protocol enforces trading cutoffs to ensure that the mechanism remains accurate and performant. This has some important implications for traders:
- Traders will not be able to open positions with the AMM for options with <12 hours to expiry.
- Traders will not be able to open trades with the AMM for options with deltas outside the specified cutoff for a given asset. For example, if the delta cutoff range is set to 10-90, users will be unable to open positions in options with a delta less than 10 or greater than 90.
- Traders will only be able to close existing positions that are outside of the delta cutoff range OR with less than 12 hours to go using the ForceClose mechanism, which incurs a penalty for doing so.
ForceClose will allow users to close their open positions at any time/delta
Partial cash collateralization for options means that the liquidity pool is open to insolvency when the
netOptionDebt exceeds the netAssetValue of the LP. In order to address this issue, values for long holders will be reduced by a certain percentage that makes the LP solvent again. This is calculated using the AdjustmentNetValueScalingFactor, parameter that caps the total value of the pool that is used to scale down longs. When an option is closed or settled, the option value will be scaled down by the percentage (scaledNetValue / netOptionDebt) which makes the pool solvent again before funds are transferred to the user. A circuit breaker (contractAdjustmentCBTimeout) must be added to make sure deposits and withdrawals are frozen for the duration of any contract adjustment event. Overall, this scaling system is put in place to prevent insolvency in the pool by reducing payouts for long holders in the event that the value of the options exceeds the total value of the assets in the pool. It is important to note that this is an extremely unlikely scenario due to large cash buffers and constant delta hedging. You can read more about contract adjustments in LEAP-36.
Last modified 4d ago