Permafrost Preseason Starts Today
Farm cBTCUSD, bond FIRE, earn FUEL. The Permafrost Preseason is live from block 973,200.
Today the Permafrost Preseason begins. Deposit BTC/USD LP into the Permafrost vault, put the cBTCUSD you receive into a farm, and it earns points on every block. When FUEL launches, those points will convert to a portion of FUEL.
The preseason runs from block 973,200 to block 986,100, about three months.
The conversion % between points and FUEL will be shared at a later time.
Why BTC/USD
In September we launched the BTC/USD market on Bitcoin L1 and every route between BTC and USD in our apps clears through it. Its depth sets the spread for everyone: a deeper pool means a tighter price and bigger trades at that price.
Providing liquidity to the pool is a position on both sides at once, half BTC and half USD, earning the pool's fee on every trade that crosses it. For anyone who wants BTC exposure with a USD hedge that pays, this is the ideal solution, and it settles on Bitcoin L1 in transactions you sign yourself.
This is the most important token pair in the market, and every dollar of depth in it makes every trade on SUBFROST better. Permafrost farming exists to grow it, and the preseason is how our earliest followers get paid in FUEL for supporting it.
What the Permafrost vault does
Deposit BTC/USD LP and the vault mints cBTCUSD, your share of everything inside. There is no lock and no cooldown: exit in any block. Exiting the vault costs 5% of your position, 4% into the vault's pot for the holders who stay, and 1% as the protocol fee.
The pot drips to cBTCUSD holders block by block, so the longer you stay the more of it is yours, and the same cBTCUSD redeems for more LP over time. Every exit pays the people who stayed. Patience is the yield.
So through Permafrost, you earn from three places, and they are separate:
- Pool fees, from every trade on BTC/USD.
- The pot drip, from every holder who exits their cBTCUSD position before you do.
- FUEL, for cBTCUSD you farm during the preseason.
How farming works
Open a farm on the Farm tab and choose how much cBTCUSD to put in it. From the next block, the farm earns points:
points = cBTCUSD in the farm x blocks in the preseason x multiplier
At the end of the preseason, FUEL is shared by points: your farms' points divided by the points of every open farm.
- Every block counts once. Points grow every block and no block is ever counted twice, so a farm opened today earns a share that nobody joining later can claim.
- Nothing to claim or check in on. Points accrue on their own.
- Only open farms count. Redeeming a farm before the end removes its points.
- Your farm is a token. Whoever holds it controls the cBTCUSD, the bond and the points, so keep it safe.
The ledger ranks farms and replays every block from the chain, so anyone can check the numbers. The Rewards page shows your farms, their multipliers, your projected share and the leaderboard.
Bond FIRE for up to 1.5x
Bonding turns a farm into a 1.5x farm for every block of the preseason, and if your position stays put, we expect into Season 1 as well. The multiplier runs in a straight line from 1x with no FIRE to 1.5x at the full bond.
The full bond is 5% of the farm's value, for 50% more points on the whole position. A $1,000 cBTCUSD farm reaches 1.5x with $50 of FIRE bonded. The 5% is fixed as an amount of FIRE per cBTCUSD at the prices when the preseason opens and does not change during the preseason; the Farm tab shows the exact figure for your farm.
Some things to consider:
It is permanent. Your FIRE goes to Permafire, the protocol's FIRE sink, and the SUBFROST treasury holds it. You cannot get it back because it buys a permanent edge in the farm. Redeeming the farm returns your cBTCUSD, not your FIRE.
Bond early. The multiplier uses your bond averaged over every block of the preseason. A 10 cBTCUSD farm fully bonded before the start reads 1.5x all the way through; the same bond placed halfway through finishes at 1.25x. Every block without a bond is a block at 1x.
Bond through the Farm UI only. FIRE sent straight to the Permafire contract is gone and credits no farm.
The boost is relative. FUEL is shared by points, so every farm that bonds takes share from every farm that did not. If you bond and your neighbor does not, you are being paid out of their share.
Three steps from BTC to farming
All three happen on the Permafrost vault page.
- Get BTC/USD LP. Zap straight from BTC in one transaction, or deposit frBTC and frUSD as a pair.
- Deposit the LP for cBTCUSD. The vault mints your shares.
- Open a farm on the Farm tab. Choose how much cBTCUSD to farm and bond FIRE now or later. Points start at the next block.
Already in the vault? Your cBTCUSD earns the drip but no points until it is in a farm. Open one today.
What happens next
The preseason closes at block 986,100. We expect that open farms that don't exit in the preseason will start Season 1 at their full multiplier, even if Season 1 bonding is more expensive. Details will follow.
Points convert to FUEL at TGE or shortly after, and the FUEL is expected to vest to reward participants over about 180 days from distribution, and in no case longer than one year.
The preseason is expected to be the biggest share of FUEL per cBTCUSD that will ever be available, because the fewest farms will be open.
The vault is open, the Farm tab is live, and the clock runs in blocks.
Disclaimer
FUEL’s TGE is unannounced, and the SUBFROST team has several milestones to hit before FUEL launches. Points are a record of participation, not an entitlement to any amount of FUEL. The conversion rate and schedule are set by SUBFROST and may change. By participating in the Permafrost rewards program you have no legal right or vote to determine the tokenomics of FUEL or the timing of its token generation event. Nothing stated above is financial advice.
