The curve, in depth

Everything on this page is enforced by open-source code you can read, not by policy. Identical math runs on Solana and Robinhood Chain, verified against each other bit for bit.

The two state variables

A NOTCH token has exactly two things that matter: the vault V (real SOL or ETH held by the contract) and the supply S (tokens in circulation). Everything else derives from them:

floor  = V / S            (guaranteed exit per token)
price  = floor / backing   (what the next buy mints at)

where backing is the fraction fixed at launch, between 0.825 and 0.99. Because price is floor divided by a constant smaller than one, price always sits above floor by a fixed ratio, and the two move together.

Buys: the power law

A buy of net amount n (after fees) grows the vault from V to V + n and mints tokens by the closed-form power law:

S1 = S0 * ((V + n) / V) ^ backing

Three properties fall straight out of the exponent:

The price rises with every buy. The vault grows faster than the supply (the exponent is below 1), so V/S and with it the price can only go up.
Splitting changes nothing. Buying n twice lands on exactly the same supply as buying 2n once: the law composes. Nobody can farm extra tokens by chunking orders, and quotes are exact.
Minting rounds down. Integer arithmetic always rounds in the holders’ favor, so the floor is monotone by construction, not by hope.

Sells: redemption plus a ratchet

A sell burns tokens and pays their floor value from the vault. 1% goes to the creator and 5% stays in the vault. Watch what the 5% does to the floor:

before:  V,          S
after:   V - 0.94*x,  S - x/floor     (selling x worth at the floor)

new floor = (V - 0.94*x) / (S - x/floor)  >  V / S

The vault loses less than the supply, proportionally, so the floor per remaining token rises with every single exit. A dump does not break a NOTCH token; it pays the people who stay.

Full exit edge case: when the last holder sells, the 5% would have nobody to benefit, so the final redemption pays out the entire remaining vault. Supply zero always means vault zero: nothing is ever stranded, and nobody can mint against leftover value.

The governor and the worst case

The code refuses to let a token’s backing fall below the level set at launch. The worst possible trade is buying at the governor price and selling immediately, which costs you the backing gap plus the two fees:

max loss = 1 - backing * 0.97 * 0.94

Backing	Max loss	Character
82.5%	24.8%	fastest price growth, platform cap
89.7%	18.2%	middle ground
93.2%	15.0%	steadier price
99.0%	9.8%	gentlest possible, fees dominate

That number is your floor on day zero. Every buy after yours, and every sell after yours, moves your personal exit up from there. The calculator runs these exact formulas for any position, on either chain.

Where profit actually comes from

Honesty section. The curve does not create money; it routes it. Your exit grows when the vault grows under your entry, and the vault grows from two sources: net inflow (new buys) and churn (the 5% of every sell that stays). Holding pays when volume comes after you; nothing guarantees volume. What the mechanic removes is the other side of the usual trade: the catastrophic exit. Your downside is a number you chose to accept before you clicked, not whatever the worst dump decides it is.

Donations

Plain transfers of SOL or ETH to a token’s vault address are one-way gifts to the floor: they raise V without minting anything, benefiting every holder proportionally. Projects can use this to guarantee their own community a rising floor.

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