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Economics

Empty-volume behaviour

If nobody trades PLOUTO, no fees accrue. If no fees accrue, the protocol does nothing. This page describes exactly what "does nothing" means, because it is a state the protocol should handle gracefully rather than an edge case.

What happens at each layer

Claiming

claimPonsFees() reverts with NothingClaimed(). No zero-value event is emitted, so the event log stays meaningful — every PonsFeesClaimed in history corresponds to real ETH arriving.

Routing

routeUnallocatedRevenue() reverts with NothingToRoute(). Same reasoning.

Buybacks

The keeper checks buybackBudget against minEthPerExecution and exits cleanly with "Nothing to do" rather than attempting a dust-sized trade.

Staking

Continues to work normally. Positions can be opened, matured and withdrawn. They simply accrue nothing.

Interface

Shows genuine zeroes with the note that they are real rather than withheld. No sample data is ever substituted.

Staking during a quiet period

A position opened while revenue is zero is not disadvantaged relative to one opened earlier — both have the same rewardDebt relationship to the accumulator, which has not moved.

But it is also not compensated for the wait. Time spent locked during a quiet market earns nothing, and the lock still runs. That is a genuine risk of staking a long term speculatively.

The rollover case

There is one asymmetry worth understanding. If revenue arrives while nothing at all is staked, it is not lost — it is held in pendingUndistributed and flushed to the first position that opens.

solidity
if (totalWeight == 0) {    pendingUndistributed = amount;   // held, not discarded}

So the first staker after a completely empty period receives the accumulated rollover in full. This is tested directly.

Note the precondition: nothing staked. If even one position is open, revenue is distributed to it immediately and there is no rollover.

What does not happen

  • Nothing is minted to compensate for the shortfall.
  • No minimum reward is paid from the reserve.
  • The buyback budget is not topped up from anywhere.
  • No APY is displayed, because there is nothing to display.

The honest framing

A protocol funded entirely by fees is, by construction, only as active as its market. Plouto's design does not smooth that out, and does not pretend to.

See risks and limitations for the full list.