The Retrograde Launch

Retrochads — the Astrowars are starting.

9 min readApr 18, 2022

edit 04/26/22 — Amended start date of both Phases. Decreased lock period for Phase 1 participants. Reduced duration of Phase 1. See accompanying article here.

edit 04/20/22 — Phase 2: clarified that once vxASTRO is live, yield accrued by Phase 2 rexASTRO rewards will be passed back to participants owed, along with their other rewards.

Our objective is to get RETRO into the hands of every Lunatic who wishes to take part in Retrograde, and incentivize those who deposit ASTRO / xASTRO with a substantial stake in the future of the protocol. Here’s how it will work.

On May 1st 2022, Retrograde is launching with a two-stage event.

Phase 1: RETRO-UST bootstrapping event,

Participate fair price discovery of the RETRO token.
Deposit UST.
Receive RETRO after two months.

Phase 2: ASTRO / xASTRO “boosted conversion” event,

Gain an even greater share of the total RETRO supply.
Deposit ASTRO or xASTRO.
Receive RETRO + rexASTRO + LP tokens after three months.

Details of both phases along with timelines for unlocks are detailed in this article.

Phase 1:

The RETRO-UST Bootstrapping Pool

Phase 1 will run for one week: commencing on May 1st* 2022 at 19.00 UTC and concluding May 4th 2022 19.00 UTC. Rewards unlock on July 4th 2022.

This Phase is for those who wish to participate in fair & decentralized price discovery of the RETRO token, and takes inspiration from similar launch events used by fellow teams building on Terra.

Here is how it works:

10,000,000 RETRO tokens (1% of supply) is deposited into the Phase 1 smart contract.
For the first two days of Phase 1, participants can commit as much UST as they would like to the RETRO-UST ‘liquidity bootstrapping pool’ in exchange for RETRO tokens. They may make unlimited deposits and withdrawals in this time.
On the final day, users may withdraw the UST they deposited in Phase 1 if they choose to. The amount they may withdraw is capped at a maximum of 50% of their deposited UST, and decreasing linearly until the end of day three. There is no limit to the number of transactions. This is shown diagrammatically below:

Any UST withdrawn on day three is irreversible and cannot be re-deposited. As only withdrawals are allowed, during this stage the price of RETRO can only get cheaper as time passes.
At the end of the event, the UST deposited in the smart contract will be paired with an additional 1% of RETRO tokens from the available supply. These will later be used to bootstrap the initial RETRO-UST liquidity pool on Astroport.
Users may claim all their RETRO tokens two* months after the conclusion of this event.
We have chosen this duration of time, as we expect that vxASTRO will be live by this date. This is not a guarantee, as the launch of vxASTRO is beyond the Retrograde team’s control.

This event will determine the RETRO price, and RETRO tokens will be distributed to all contributors in proportion to the amount of UST they have deposited.

All users will get the same price and there is no advantage to being ‘first’.

For example, if there are 100 RETRO tokens and 100 UST in the pool, the price of RETRO will be 1 UST (100/100) when the liquidity pool goes live on Astroport.

Phase 2:

ASTRO / xASTRO “boosted conversion”

Phase 2 will run for one week, commencing on May 4th 2022 19.00 UTC and concluding May 11th 2022 19.00 UTC. Rewards unlock on August 11th 2022.

This Phase is for those who wish to gain an even greater share of the future governance of Retrograde, by committing ASTRO or xASTRO tokens to the protocol treasury.

This event will also allow the bootstrapping of a new “rexASTRO / xASTRO” stableswap pool on Astroport.

Retrograde will incentivize early participants who provide ASTRO and xASTRO at this stage with a share of 10% of the total RETRO supply, on top of derivative tokens and LP tokens.

At the conclusion of this event on day 7, any ASTRO or xASTRO tokens in the phase 2 contract will not be returned to the user — they are earmarked to be locked as vxASTRO OR used to bootstrap the initial rexASTRO/xASTRO liquidity pool.

Here’s how it works:

100m RETRO tokens (10% of supply) are deposited into a smart contract.
Users will be able to provide their ASTRO or xASTRO tokens, and deposit them. These will be used as follows:
90% of the total user deposited tokens will be converted, into the protocol’s new derivative token “rexASTRO” at a rate of 1 xASTRO per rexASTRO. These derivative tokens are claimable in full on unlock.
Any ASTRO deposited by the user is staked to xASTRO automatically and converted.
10% of the total user deposited tokens will be used to bootstrap a new rexASTRO/xASTRO stableswap pool on Astroport. These LP tokens will be claimable in full on unlock.
Users are allocated their share of 10% of the total RETRO supply, proportional to their share of total xASTRO deposited. These RETRO tokens will be claimable in full on unlock.

So in summary, in return for depositing ASTRO tokens, users will receive:

rexASTRO equivalent to 90% of the number of xASTRO tokens deposited by the user.
rexASTRO/xASTRO LP tokens equivalent to the remaining 10% of xASTRO tokens deposited by the user.
On top of this, their share of 10% of the total RETRO token supply.
For the first five days of Phase 2, participants can commit as much ASTRO and xASTRO as they would like. They may make unlimited deposits and withdrawals in this time.
For the final two days, users may withdraw the ASTRO and xASTRO they deposited in Phase 2 if they choose to. The amount they may withdraw is capped at a maximum of 50% of their deposited tokens, and decreasing linearly until the end of day seven. There is no limit to the number of transactions. This is shown diagrammatically below:

Any ASTRO withdrawn on days 6 and 7 is irreversible and cannot be re-deposited. As only withdrawals are allowed, during this stage the potential returns can only increase.
After three months, rewards will become claimable in their entirety.
Once vxASTRO is live, all rexASTRO yield accrued will be passed back to participants in Phase 2 along with their rewards.

This launch design should make it exceptionally attractive for users to provide their ASTRO tokens to the Retrograde protocol.

RETRO Token Allocation Summary

As part of the launch, 120 million RETRO (12% out of a total of 1 billion) is allocated. They will be distributed as shown below.

Phase 1: 10m Tokens (1%) — Users who deposit UST.

Phase 2: 100m Tokens (10%) — Users who deposit ASTRO or xASTRO

Airdrop: 10m Tokens (1%) — Users who participated in the Astroport Launch, held ASTRO or provided ASTRO-UST liquidity at block height 7045697.

These airdrop tokens will be distributed three months after the Phase 2 rewards are claimable. In other words, the users who participate in Phase 1 and 2 will be prioritized.

For more details on the airdrop, please see the following article:

RETRO Airdrop Explained. The RETRO airdrop aims to get RETRO… | by Retrograde | Apr, 2022 | Medium

All team, investor and contributor tokens are subject to a four year vest, with one year cliff.

Retrograde is a decentralized protocol in which all users benefit from additional ASTRO and xASTRO stored in the treasury. Therefore in order to allow ‘latecomers’ to convert ASTRO or xASTRO tokens to rexASTRO in the interim, prior to Phase 1 and 2 reward unlocks, the convert function will be available along with initial liquidity for the rexASTRO/xASTRO and RETRO/UST pairs. Of course, users who provide ASTRO following the end of Phase 2 will not receive any RETRO token bonus for doing so.

The fair launch price discovered in Phase 1 will directly translate to the initial ratio of UST and RETRO provided on Astroport. However it should be stated that initially, some minor “trickle” of RETRO emissions will be used to incentivize liquidity provision on Astroport for these two pairs.

The overall project tokenomics are as below:

Breakdown:

62% Community, Emissions and Ecosystem
10% Investors
5% Key contributors
10% Team
10% Phase 2
1% Phase 1
1% Airdrop
1% Initial Retro pool liquidity

Why launch in this way?

The team behind Retrograde does not wish to set a price, conduct a public sale, or place themselves in a position of being sellers, authorities, market makers, brokers, underwriters or “issuers”. Therefore it is crucial that all liquidity and price discovery is provided by Retrograde’s users, acting in a decentralized manner.

In both phases, participants will all get the same price.
There is no advantage to being the first person to deposit into the pool, therefore..
Bots cannot front-run or take significant amounts or the initial supply.
Participants will have plenty of time at each stage.
This method will reduce network congestion as the launch is spread over a longer duration.
This method will reduce price manipulation from large depositors.

NOTE: Participation in the Retrograde launch involves significant technical risks and uncertainties. Please carefully review the project Disclaimers for important information about the nature of such risks, the practical irreversibility of the relevant blockchain transactions and the absence of reliable or readily available remedies for any loss or impairment of tokens or other damages you might suffer by participating in any Phase of this launch event.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMERS:

All phases of the launch and each other transaction described herein is not intended to be an investment, a capital-raising transaction for an enterprise, a sale of your tokens to any person or group of persons or a purchase of RETRO from any person or group of persons. It is also not intended to be a loan, consignment or deposit of your tokens to or with, or a service provided to you by, any person or group of persons. The smart contracts which will hold UST, ASTRO, xASTRO tokens are not owned by or under the control of any person or group of persons involved in creating Retrograde; instead, these smart contracts are operated on an unaffiliated basis by the block validators for the Terra mainnet blockchain. However, these validators also do not have individual ownership or control of the relevant smart contracts or the Terra blockchain and lack any obligation or method to coordinate a reversal or mitigation of any adverse results of such smart contracts. This means that if the events or transactions do not work as described herein and your tokens are lost, frozen or impaired or you suffer other damages or harms as a result of participating in Phase 1, Phase 2 or any other transaction described herein, you might have no legal or practical remedy, regardless of the causes of or reasons for these adverse events. There is no ‘transaction counterparty’ which has the power to reverse your transactions or recover your assets, or which has made you a promise to return or refund any lost, frozen or impaired assets. There is also no guarantee, indemnification or insurance available to compensate users for any assets lost, frozen or impaired in connection with Phase 1, Phase 2 or other damages users suffer in connection therewith.

Therefore, although participation in Phase 1, Phase 2 or the other transactions described herein do not involve traditional ‘counterparty risk’ from a seller or borrower, Phase 1, Phase 2 and those other transactions do involve significant technical risks. You should not rely on this article or any published code audit as an accurate description or evaluation of the Retrograde smart contracts, but instead you should only participate in Phase 1 or Phase 2 after thoroughly reviewing and understanding the code of the relevant smart contracts in your own independent due diligence process.