How It Works

This page walks the full lifecycle of a copy trade, at the level of "what happens" before "how it's coded". Every step links to the deeper reference.

#The lifecycle

#1. Leader activity

A desk is bound to exactly one leader address, fixed at deployment (DeskVault.leader()). The leader trades official Stock Tokens on Robinhood Chain with their own money, in their own wallet. The keeper never picks the leader — it reads the binding from the vault (or an explicit operator fallback). See Leaders & Followers.

#2. Observation

The keeper's fill source watches for leader activity. The live source reads ERC-20 Transfer logs for registry token addresses and classifies each transfer as a leader buy or sell. A static fixture source exists for paper mode and tests. See Fill sources.

#3. Normalization

The signaler turns a raw fill into a copy signal, failing closed: unknown symbol (not in the official registry), zero notional, or a bad price all reject before any risk math runs. See Pipeline.

#4. Risk evaluation

The signal is evaluated twice, with the same rules:

• Off-chain, by the keeper's TypeScript port (evaluateRisk), so the tape can record why before anything is submitted.
• On-chain, by RiskModule.evaluate inside the same transaction as execution, so the rules are enforced even if the keeper misbehaves.

The checks, in order: desk configured → token allowlisted → session tradable → price fresh → drawdown not breached → size non-zero → session multiplier → per-fill cap → per-position cap → gross exposure cap → (buys) cash available / (sells) position exists. See the Risk Engine section.

#5. Resize, skip, or halt

Every decision is one of:

#6. Execution

If the on-chain risk module returns Accept, DeskVault.executeCopy swaps through the SwapAdapter — a restricted adapter that never accepts arbitrary calldata, only calls an owner-set router, and only for allowlisted tokens. On mainnet the router is ExactInputRouter02, a thin wrapper over Uniswap's SwapRouter02 exactInputSingle. On testnet no router is configured, so execution reverts (fail closed). See SwapAdapter.

#7. Vault accounting

A buy moves USDG from cashUsdg into a token position; a sell does the reverse. Fees accrue against the high-water mark and time-based AUM on every state-changing call. Positions are valued with balanceOfUI() × oracle price. See NAV & Accounting.

#8. NAV per share

navPerShare = equity / totalShares, where equity is cash plus position values minus fee liabilities. Depositors read it in the blotter; the drawdown halt and the performance fee both key off it. See Seat Shares & NAV.

#Where each step lives