summary: Olympus DAO is a decentralized reserve currency protocol powered by the OHM token.
content: Olympus DAO is a decentralized reserve currency protocol powered by the OHM token. Olympus DAO includes its own protocol-managed treasury, bond mechanism, and staking rewards that are designed to control supply expansion. Olympus DAO also offers Olympus Pro, a Bonds-as-a-Service protocol that helps projects develop their own protocol-owned liquidity. Overview !olympus-one-page-1-1635414240282.jpgOlympus is a decentralized reserve currency protocol based on the OHM token. Each OHM token is backed by different assets in the Olympus treasury. While it started with only holding DAI in its treasury, it evolved to include more coins such as FRAX, LUSD and ETH, as well as LP tokens such as OHM/DAI LP tokens from SushiSwap. Olympus also has staking and bonding features. Stakers stake their OHM tokens in return for more OHM tokens, while bonders provide LP or DAI tokens in exchange for discounted OHM tokens after a fixed vesting period. Governance participants can get involved on the Olympus and through discussions on the Olympus and servers. The main benefit for stakers comes from supply growth. The protocol mints new OHM tokens from the treasury, the majority of which are distributed to the stakers. Thus, the gain for stakers will come from their auto-compounding balances, though price exposure remains an important consideration. That is, if the increase in token balance outpaces the potential drop in price (due to inflation), stakers would make a profit. The main benefit for bonders comes from price consistency. Bonders commit capital upfront and are promised a fixed return at a set point in time; that return is in OHM and thus the bonder's profit would depend on OHM price when the bond matures. Bonders benefit from a rising or static OHM price. Products Staking Stakers stake their OHM tokens on the Olympus website to earn rebase rewards. The rebase rewards come from the proceed from bond sales, and can vary based on the number of OHM staked in the protocol and the reward rate set by monetary policy. When a user stakes, they lock OHM and receive an equal amount of sOHM. The user's sOHM balance rebases up automatically at the end of every epoch. sOHM is transferable and therefore composable with other DeFi protocols. When a user unstakes, they burn sOHM and receive an equal amount of OHM. Unstaking means the user will forfeit the upcoming rebase reward. Bonding The bonding feature allows Olympus to acquire its own liquidity and other reserve assets such as LUSD (Liquity USD) by selling OHM at a discount in exchange for these assets. The protocol quotes the bonder with terms such as the bond price, the amount of OHM tokens entitled to the bonder, and the vesting term. The bonder can claim some of the rewards (OHM tokens) as they vest, and at the end of the vesting term, the full amount will be claimable. Bonding is an active, short-term strategy. The price discovery mechanism of the secondary bond market renders bond discounts more or less unpredictable. Therefore, bonding is considered a more active investment strategy that has to be monitored constantly in order to be more profitable as compared to staking. Bonding allows Olympus to accumulate its own liquidity, POL. More POL ensures there is always locked exit liquidity in Olympus trading pools to facilitate market operations and protect token holders. OHM Tokens OHM OHM is a decentralized reserve currency backed by other decentralized assets. Each OHM is backed by 1 DAI, not pegged to it. Because the treasury backs every OHM with at least 1 DAI, the protocol would buy back and burn OHM when it trades below 1 DAI. This has the effect of pushing OHM price back up to 1 DAI. OHM could always trade above 1 DAI because there is no upper limit imposed by the protocol. sOHM Users receive sOHM when they stake OHM at a 1:1 ratio. wsOHM wsOHM is wrapped staked OHM. The non-rebasing wrapper is used to package up staked OHM in a non-rebasing container that can be transferred between chains. Currently, this token is supported on Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Avalanche (AVAX) networks. aOHM When OlympusDAO first launched, alphaOHM (aOHM) was used as a pre-allocation token which allowed the early participants to lay claim to OHM. Moving forward aOHM served as the in-game currency of a community-led social game that runs on the blockchain. Other than that, aOHM is not relevant to OHM or the operation of OlympusDAO. pOHM pOHM, previously known as pOLY, is the presale token of Olympus. It was used to raise funds from private investors to bootstrap Olympus. Olympus V2 In October 2021, Olympus DAO announced Olympus V2 introducing several new features. On-Chain Governance Stakers take full control of protocol contracts through the implementation of Compound's Governor Bravo. Olympus began with a guardian multisig, followed by an on-chain governed Treasury, followed by on-chain governed bonds. On-chain governance now occurs through the gOHM token (previously called wsOHM). Users can now stake directly into/out of gOHM, saving time and gas. Bonds Bond payouts are staked at the time of purchase. Rather than requiring bonders to factor in missed rewards when considering a discount, they are now earned by default. Bonds no longer vest linearly. Instead, bonders must wait until the end of their term to redeem. This illiquidity is enabled by staking bond payouts and creates a form of locked staking that will save money by removing the incentive to incur wasteful gas transactions through frequent redemption. New bond types are created as isolated offerings. Each bond has a maximum amount of OHM that can be paid or a maximum amount of principal that can be purchased and, once exceeded, the bond is retired. Bonds can be held as NFTs. This enables liquid secondary bond markets. Bonds can be both fixed-term (one that pays the same level of interest over its entire term) or fixed-expiration (where the maturation date is the same for all who buy that bond). Fixed-expiration bonds can be wrapped into a fungible token and traded like any ERC20 token. Bonds offer a front-end reward. This will incentivize third parties to run front-ends for Olympus, reducing single-point-of-failure risk. Olympus Pro Olympus Pro is protocol-owned liquidity-as-a-service created by the Olympus DAO, providing a custom treasury and bonds optimized to individual needs. Through bonds, protocols can accumulate the crucial infrastructural liquidity that they generally service via liquidity mining. Instead of renting that liquidity (often at high-interest rates), they purchase it, turning a value-draining perpetual expense into revenue-producing assets that facilitate the functionality of the rest of the platform. Partners are featured on Olympus Pro X, a unified marketplace for bonds from a multitude of protocols. The marketplace will become the default destination for DeFi investors looking for discounted exposure to various tokens through this unique mechanism. Additionally, Olympus will provide its partners with co-marketing services, leveraging their community and brand to highlight new projects. An end goal of Olympus Pro services is to promote OHM as a treasury asset and liquidity pair token for other protocols. Since the launch of Olympus Pro in September 2021, OP bonds have captured more than $9.35 million of liquidity from its first two cohorts of partners. The list of projects that used the Olympus Pro services includes Frax Finance, Alchemix, PoolTogether, BarnBridge, Thorstarter, and others. Olympus Grants Launched in February 2022, Olympus Grants was designed to fill various gaps in the Olympus ecosystem by funding projects which support Olympus DAO’s initiatives but don’t fit into existing projects. Where a token swap, incubator investment, or yield-redirection is not quite appropriate, Olympus Grants will fill the gap. The OGP (Olympus Grants Program) is funded with $1.5 M of DAO approved $OHM and is built to bolster the objectives of other departments such as Partnerships, Olympus Pro, Incubator, and Give in ways that require a more flexible funding mechanism. Grants will promote the core values of OHM such as building an inclusive econOHMy. This will help Olympus DAO take the cooperative economics of Web3 and greatly expand the reach and user experience of the Olympus ecosystem. Inverse Bonds Inverse Bonding is a new tool for OlympusDAO to increase $OHM’s liquid backing and absorb market volatility. Inverse bonds are part of an overarching strategy, defined in Olympus12, that seeks to produce value for Olympus holders through a strong Treasury. This cements OlympusDAO's position as the reserve currency and central bank of DeFi. Since its launch in March 2022, Inverse bonds allow Olympus to create a means to bring OHM out of circulation, which increases the backing per OHM on every inverse bond that is executed below liquid backing. Flex Loans Flex Loans is a whitelisted product offering for protocols to grow their protocol-owned liquidity through an interest free loan against perfect collateral. By depositing gOHM as a collateral asset, the borrower is able to borrow up to 100% LTV in OHM and pair this with another token to create a liquidity pair. Since the loan is in the same denomination, there is no risk of liquidation and the loan will lower in LTV% as the gOHM collateral continues to receive the underlying rebases. Once whitelisted by Olympus, the borrower deposits gOHM into Flex Loan contract along with the other half of the intended LP token. The contract then borrows against the d