Documentation
How QUARTER works
The mechanism behind cash-flow markets for Robinhood Stock Tokens: what the claims are, how corporate actions are verified, and what happens at maturity.
What is QUARTER?
QUARTER is the corporate-action layer for onchain equities. It creates markets for the future cash flows of Robinhood Stock Tokens, so the dividend component of an equity position can be priced, traded and settled separately from the price component.
A Robinhood Stock Token represents total-return exposure. QUARTER separates the baseline stock exposure from verified dividend accrual for a defined period. It does not create additional uncollateralized Stock Tokens.
That single sentence is the whole design constraint. Every claim the protocol issues is backed one-for-one by escrowed collateral, and every distribution a claim settles against has been verified by at least two independent sources before it is recognised.
CORE and COUPON
Separating one Stock Token for a chosen maturity produces exactly two claims of equal quantity.
CORE-KO-DEC26
Price exposure
Tracks the Stock Token price for the period, excluding the dividend accrual. It converts back into the Stock Token at maturity. Holding CORE keeps the equity exposure a holder already had.
Indicative value $74.00
COUPON-KO-DEC26
Dividend accrual
Carries every verified distribution declared for the period. At maturity it settles against the accrued normalized amount, in USDG by default.
Market price $0.6168 · implied yield 2.84%
CORE + COUPON = Stock Token, at creation and at maturity
How stripping works
Stripping is a deposit, not a loan. The Stock Token is escrowed by the strip engine for the life of the maturity, and two claims are issued against it. Nothing is borrowed and no additional Stock Token supply is created.
The COUPON leg is priced from the expected normalized distribution over the period, discounted back to today. CORE takes the residual.
impliedPayout = P × y × t couponPrice = impliedPayout ÷ (1 + r × t) coreValue = P − couponPrice
- P
- Indicative price of the Stock Token
- y
- Implied annualised cash-flow yield for the maturity
- t
- Time to maturity, in years
- r
- Discount rate plus the market-specific spread
A holder can keep both legs, sell the COUPON leg for USDG to monetise the upcoming dividend, or buy COUPON alone to take dividend exposure without financing the whole position. The strip flow walks through the full construction.
Dividend normalization
A Robinhood Stock Token reinvests distributions through an onchain multiplier rather than paying cash to holders. Its total-return value is the reference price multiplied by that factor.
tokenValue = referencePrice × multiplier
- multiplier
- Cumulative reinvestment factor since listing
Normalization is the process of turning a declared corporate action into the change in that multiplier, so a claim can be settled against a single verified number rather than against a press release.
- 01
Declaration
Issuer filing or exchange notice
- 02
Second source
Transfer agent confirmation
- 03
Agreement
Amount and dates match
- 04
Publication
Normalized factor published
- 05
Rescale
Claims and index updated
dividendFactor = 1 + (normalizedAmount ÷ referencePrice) multiplierAfter = multiplierBefore × dividendFactor
Stock splits
A split changes the number of units, not the value of the claim. QUARTER treats splits as a rescale event on both legs simultaneously.
quantityAfter = quantityBefore × splitFactor valuePerUnitAfter = valuePerUnitBefore ÷ splitFactor
Corporate-action safety
The protocol never settles against a single unconfirmed source. Two independent sources — an issuer filing, a transfer-agent confirmation or an exchange notice — must agree on both the amount and the dates before a factor is published.
When they disagree, the oracle pauses. Pausing holds settlement; it does not halt trading. Positions remain transferable and marks continue to update while the discrepancy is reviewed.
Publication is backed economically. Normalization operators stake $QTR against correct publication and each listed strip carries a market bond, both of which are slashable if a market is settled against an unverified factor. The insurance reserve covers settlement if a normalized amount is later corrected.
Settlement
At maturity the two legs settle independently.
- COUPON redeems against the accrued normalized amount for the period, paid in USDG by default. If the settlement asset preference is set to the Stock Token, the equivalent value is delivered in kind.
- CORE converts back into the underlying Stock Token at the reference price, restoring the original exposure.
Settlement runs in a window that opens at the maturity date. Markets inside that window show a Settlement soon status, and a market that has completed the cycle shows as Settled.
couponSettlement = quantity × (multiplierAtMaturity − multiplierAtCreation) × referencePrice
Auto-roll
Auto-roll carries a position into the next listed maturity at settlement rather than redeeming it. For a COUPON holder this maintains continuous dividend exposure; for a CORE holder it maintains continuous price exposure without an intermediate conversion back into the Stock Token.
The roll is priced at the indicative mark of the destination maturity. If no later maturity is listed for that Stock Token, the position settles normally and the preference is ignored — the protocol never invents a market to roll into.
Auto-roll can be set per position from the portfolio, or as an account default in settings.
Baskets
A basket is a fixed-weight composition of COUPON claims across several names and, in some cases, several maturities. It is created and redeemed against the underlying composition, so the unit price tracks the sum of its parts.
basketYield = Σ (weightᵢ × yieldᵢ)
Corporate actions are handled per constituent. A held oracle on one name delays that constituent's settlement, not the whole basket, and a split rescales only the affected constituent's quantity.
Dividend curves
Plotting implied cash-flow yield against time to maturity gives a dividend curve. Its shape is an expectation about distribution growth.
- An upward curve prices distribution growth into later maturities. KO and JPM both trade this way.
- A downward curve prices distribution uncertainty into later maturities. XOM trades this way, with the highest front-quarter payout in the supported set.
Declared amounts are drawn as dashed references so expectation and commitment can be read apart on the same axis. Where a distribution has been declared and normalized, the implied and declared values should converge.
The curve explorer compares up to four Stock Tokens at once and exports a chart for external use.
$QTR
$QTR is the protocol asset. It has a fixed maximum supply of 1,000,000,000 and no further issuance. It does three jobs.
- Fee routing. Each epoch the fee pool is split: 55% market-buy and burn, 25% corporate-action insurance reserve, 15% protocol-owned COUPON liquidity, 5% keeper and settlement incentives.
- Market bonding. Every listed strip is bonded, and the bond is slashable if the market is settled against an unverified factor.
- Operator collateral. Normalization operators and settlement keepers stake against correct publication and timely execution.
$QTR is not a claim on the cash flows of any company and confers no shareholder rights. The protocol engine page shows the burn ledger, bond distribution and reserve health.
Risks
Cash-flow claims carry risks that a plain equity position does not. These are the material ones.
Distribution risk
Implied payout is an expectation, not a commitment. A reduced, delayed or cancelled declaration lowers what a COUPON settles against, and the loss falls entirely on the COUPON holder.
Corporate-action risk
Unusual events — merger consideration, spin-offs, reclassifications — may require manual review. Settlement is held rather than executed against an unverified amount, which delays redemption.
Liquidity risk
COUPON markets are thinner than the underlying Stock Token, particularly at back maturities. Exit prices can differ materially from the indicative mark.
Oracle risk
Normalization depends on external data sources. A source outage pauses settlement. A source error that passes two-source agreement would be corrected against the insurance reserve.
Instrument risk
A Stock Token represents economic exposure. It does not confer shareholder rights, voting rights or direct ownership of the underlying company, and neither claim issued against it does either.
Smart-contract risk
Escrow, issuance and settlement are executed by contracts. Deployment details, audits and addresses will be published in the developer documentation before mainnet execution is enabled.
Developers
QUARTER runs on Robinhood Chain Mainnet. Gas is paid in ETH and cash settlement uses USDG.
Chain name Robinhood Chain
Chain ID 4663
Gas token ETH
RPC https://rpc.mainnet.chain.robinhood.com
Explorer https://robinhoodchain.blockscout.comThe interface talks to the protocol through a single execution-adapter interface. The preview venue used in this build and the onchain venue satisfy the same contract, so enabling mainnet execution is a configuration change rather than a rewrite.
export interface ExecutionAdapter {
readonly id: 'preview' | 'onchain'
readonly label: string
isAvailable(): boolean
quote(intent: ExecutionIntent): ExecutionQuote
execute(
intent: ExecutionIntent,
onProgress?: (p: ExecutionProgress) => void,
): Promise<ExecutionReceipt>
}
// The onchain adapter becomes eligible only when a complete set of
// deployed addresses is present in the environment.
export function resolveAdapter(): ExecutionAdapter {
return contractAdapter.isAvailable() ? contractAdapter : previewAdapter
}NEXT_PUBLIC_WALLETCONNECT_PROJECT_ID= # optional, enables mobile pairing
NEXT_PUBLIC_ROBINHOOD_RPC_URL= # optional RPC override
NEXT_PUBLIC_MARKET_DATA_URL= # optional live market-data endpoint
NEXT_PUBLIC_QUARTER_STRIP_ENGINE=
NEXT_PUBLIC_QUARTER_MARKET_ROUTER=
NEXT_PUBLIC_QUARTER_BASKET_FACTORY=
NEXT_PUBLIC_QUARTER_ACTION_ORACLE=
NEXT_PUBLIC_STOCK_TOKENS= # SYMBOL:0xaddress, comma separatedGlossary
- CORE
- The claim carrying baseline price exposure of a Stock Token to a defined maturity. Converts back into the Stock Token at settlement.
- COUPON
- The claim carrying verified dividend accrual for a defined period. Settles against the accrued normalized amount at maturity.
- Implied payout
- The expected normalized distribution per token between now and maturity, expressed in USDG.
- Implied yield
- Implied payout as an annualised percentage of the underlying indicative price. The value plotted on a dividend curve.
- Normalized amount
- A declared distribution after verification and conversion into the Stock Token multiplier. The only amount a claim settles against.
- Multiplier
- The cumulative reinvestment factor applied to a Stock Token. Rises with each verified distribution and is unaffected by splits.
- Open interest
- Total value of outstanding claims in a market, in USDG.
- Maturity
- The settlement date of a strip. Defines the accrual period a COUPON claim captures.
- Auto-roll
- A preference that carries a position into the next listed maturity at settlement instead of redeeming it.
- Oracle pause
- A held state entered when two sources disagree. Settlement is held; trading continues.
- Basket
- A fixed-weight composition of cash-flow claims across several names, created and redeemed as a single unit.
- USDG
- The settlement asset used for cash redemption of COUPON claims and basket distributions.
Figures used as examples throughout this documentation come from the same preview dataset that drives the rest of the interface, so they match what the markets, curves and portfolio surfaces display. They are illustrative and are not live quotations.