Net Stake
Understand Saturn’s Net Stake mechanism, including how staking and unstaking requests are matched to improve liquidity and reserve efficiency.
Unstaking sUSDat before it has been held for a full STRC dividend cycle incurs an early-unstake fee.
Net Stake is the amount of sUSDat held through a full dividend cycle that can be unstaked without a fee.
The Rule
Each deposit becomes fee-free after sUSDat is held through one STRC dividend cycle, currently 31 days. Unstaking any amount before it has been held for 31 days incurs a fee on the portion that has not yet cleared the period.
The fee is approximately one month of STRC dividends, currently ~96 bps. There is no lockup: sUSDat can be unstaked at any time, and the fee is the only cost of unstaking early.
Why the Fee Exists
STRC pays a dividend monthly. On the ex-dividend date its price falls by approximately the dividend amount, then recovers toward $100 over the remainder of the cycle as the next dividend accrues.
Saturn collects each dividend at the end of each month and distributes it to sUSDat holders gradually over the following cycle, so the sUSDat price rises smoothly rather than stepping up on the payout date.
This gradual distribution creates an arbitrage opportunity. A deposit made immediately after an ex-dividend date captures two forms of value it did not contribute to:
the prior cycle's dividend, still being distributed but earned by holders who held through the ex-dividend date, and
the price recovery following the ex-dividend drop.
Unstaking before the next ex-dividend date realizes most of a cycle's value without holding through a full cycle. Repeated monthly, this extracts yield at the expense of long-term holders. The fee removes the incentive: fee-free unstaking requires holding for a full cycle.
What Counts Toward Net Stake
Net Stake is derived from your Effective Balance: the total sUSDat you hold across all supported protocols, including sUSDat held directly and sUSDat held through supported DeFi protocols.
Effective Balance = sUSDat balance + sUSDat-equivalent of each supported protocol position
Net Stake = the minimum Effective Balance over the trailing 31 daysFor each supported protocol, Saturn calculates your sUSDat-equivalent from the protocol's on-chain state - your share of a liquidity pool, your lending balance, or your PT/YT holdings - valued at the protocol's current conversion rate. Positions are calculated directly from on-chain data, whether they are represented as ERC20 tokens, NFTs, or balances tracked within the protocol's contracts. No action is required to have a supported position counted.
Supported protocols
Wallet
sUSDat held directly
Curve
sUSDat liquidity pools
PancakeSwap
sUSDat liquidity pools
Pendle
PT-sUSDat, YT-sUSDat, LP-sUSDat
Morpho
Collateralized sUSDat, srUSDat, and PT-srUSDat
Strata
srUSDat, jrUSDat, PT-srUSDat, YT-srUSDat, LP-srUSDat, PT-jrUSDat, YT-jrUSDat and LP-jrUSDat
A position counts toward Net Stake for as long as it remains yours and remains in a supported protocol:
Moving between supported protocols does not reset the holding period. Effective Balance is unchanged, so the clock continues.
Bridging to the same address does not reset the holding period. Saturn tracks sUSDat and supported positions across EVM chains; a bridge between identical addresses is treated as a continuous position.
Acquiring additional sUSDat (for example, buying on a supported DEX) increases Effective Balance immediately. The new amount begins its own 31-day period and does not affect the holding period of existing balance.
What Does Not Count
The following do not contribute to Effective Balance:
Selling. sUSDat that has been sold is no longer held and does not count.
Unsupported protocols. sUSDat held in a protocol Saturn does not support is counted as zero for the period it is held there. A fee may apply on unstaking even if the position was held continuously in economic terms. See Adding a protocol before committing a position to an unsupported protocol.
A different address. Net Stake is tracked per address. sUSDat transferred to another address, including one you control, begins a new 31-day period at the receiving address; a position cannot be linked across a change of address. Bridging to the same address is exempt, as described above.
Adding a Protocol
Saturn can support any protocol whose sUSDat positions can be read on-chain. The time required to add one depends on how the protocol represents positions: those exposed as ERC20 tokens, such as standard LP tokens and ERC4626 vault shares, are fastest to integrate; positions held as NFTs, such as Uniswap V3 concentrated liquidity, or tracked only in a protocol's contract state require more work. To request support for a protocol, contact the team before committing a position to it.
How the Fee Is Applied
Unstaking is executed through a limit order: you specify the minimum amount of USDat you will accept. The order executes only when your position value, net of any applicable fee, meets or exceeds that limit.
If the limit exceeds the available net value, the order remains open until either:
the position accrues sufficient value to satisfy the limit after the fee, or
the limit is lowered.
Examples
Each example assumes a 31-day cycle in which Day 1 is an ex-dividend date and Day 32 is the next.
Held for the full cycle - no fee. 1,000 sUSDat is held from Day 1 to Day 32, then unstaked. The full amount was held for a complete cycle. Net Stake is 1,000; no fee applies.
Held for the full cycle through a DeFi position - no fee. 1,000 sUSDat is held from Day 1, deposited into a Curve sUSDat pool on Day 5, withdrawn on Day 25, and unstaked on Day 32. Curve is supported, so Effective Balance remained 1,000 throughout. Net Stake is 1,000; no fee applies.
Deposited after the ex-dividend, unstaked before the full cycle completes - fee on the full amount. 1,000 sUSDat is acquired on Day 2 and unstaked on Day 30, a holding period of 28 days. No portion has cleared the 31-day period. Net Stake is 0; the fee applies to the full 1,000.
Additional deposit mid-cycle - fee on the new portion only. 600 sUSDat is held from Day 1; 400 is added on Day 15. All 1,000 is unstaked on Day 32. The original 600 has cleared a full cycle; the 400 has been held 16 days. Net Stake is 600; the fee applies to the remaining 400.
FAQ
How long is a cycle? The length of one STRC dividend cycle, currently 31 days.
How much is the fee? Approximately one month of STRC dividends, currently ~96 bps. It applies only to the portion of an unstake that exceeds your Net Stake.
Is there a lockup? No. sUSDat can be unstaked at any time. The fee is the only cost of unstaking before the holding period clears.
Where can I see my Net Stake? A live view of Net Stake and the current fee-free amount will be available in the Saturn app when the feature ships.
Where does the fee go? To sUSDat holders. Collected fees are added to the following cycle's distribution, increasing the yield paid to remaining holders.
What Changed From the May 21 Announcement
The May 21 announcement defined Net Stake as a function of flows: capital staked minus capital unstaked through Saturn. That approach is accurate only when deposits and withdrawals occur directly through Saturn. In practice, positions enter and exit through DEXs and DeFi protocols along many different paths, and accounting for every path reliably proved impractical - each additional protocol introduced new edge cases.
Net Stake is now measured from holdings rather than flows. Saturn calculates the sUSDat-equivalent you hold across all supported protocols at any point in time and takes the minimum over the trailing 31 days. The result is independent of how a position was entered or exited, which resolves the edge cases of the flow-based model and allows new protocols to be added without redefining the calculation.
The core rule is unchanged: holding through a full dividend cycle incurs no fee. What is new is that positions across supported DeFi protocols now count toward Net Stake, and the position must remain at a single address.
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