Reserve Rights (RSR)

Reserve Rights (RSR) is an ERC20 token common across all Reserve tokens (RTokens). RSR can be staked on a particular RToken, where it has two roles:

  1. Staked RSR receives a portion of the RToken collateral’s revenue in exchange for being the first capital-at-risk in the case of collateral default.
  2. Staked RSR proposes and votes on changes to the RToken’s configuration.

All the relevant information regarding RSR’s supply, release schedule, audits, etc. can be found through the links below:

Reserve Rights staking

Reserve Rights (RSR) exists as an overcollateralization mechanism to protect RToken holders in the unlikely event of a collateral token default. In order for RSR holders to provide this overcollateralization, they can decide to stake on any one RToken, or divide their RSR tokens by staking on multiple RTokens. RSR holders can also decide not to stake their RSR at all.

In return for providing this overcollateralization, RSR stakers can expect to receive a portion of the revenue from the specific RToken that they stake on. As a general rule, RSR stakers can expect higher returns (APYs) as the market cap of the RToken they stake on increases.

When RSR is staked on an RToken, it's deposited into a staking contract specific to that RToken, and the staker receives a corresponding ERC-20 token, representing their staked RSR position on that particular RToken. This token is transferrable and fungible with other staked RSR balances for that RToken, so you can send any portion of the staked position to someone else or trade it, and the new holder can un-stake it if they choose to.

Staked RSR can earn rewards, based on three factors:

  1. The amount of revenue the RToken generates
  2. The portion of revenue that governance has directed to RSR stakers
  3. Your portion of the total RSR staked on that RToken

As a simple example, suppose (these numbers are just made up for simplicity, to make the arithmetic clear):

In this simple example, you would get $100 * 20% * (100/1000) = $2 for that period.

The protocol stores revenue for a particular RToken in different ERC20s (including RTokens). When staking rewards are distributed, it market-buys RSR via auctions with these ERC20s and deposits it into the staking contract to distribute the rewards to RSR stakers. Thus, as rewards are earned, the exchange rate of staked RSR to RSR increases.

When RSR is staked, it is actually at stake. Staked RSR can be seized by the protocol in the event of a collateral token default, in order to cover losses for RToken holders. It's seized pro-rata if this happens.

Un-staking RSR comes with a delay, which is configurable by governance, and predicted to usually be between about 7 and 30 days. This delay is necessary so that in the event of a default, the staked RSR will remain in the staking contract for long enough to allow the RToken to seize any RSR it needs to cover losses.

During the unstaking delay period, the staker does not earn any rewards. This is necessary to prevent stakers from withdrawing and re-depositing over and over in order to subvert the withdrawal delay mechanism.

The easiest way to stake your RSR is to use a user interface that interacts with the Reserve Protocol smart contracts, such as Register. If you're looking for an easy tutorial on how to stake, please refer to this article.

Reserve Rights governance

While each RToken can have its own customized governance system, we expect most RTokens to use our default configuration where the amount of RSR tokens a participant holds serves as the voting weight.

If an RToken’s overcollateralization & governance is both done by RSR token holders, there is the incentive for the RSR governance participants to keep the RToken as safe as possible, rather than taking unnecessary risk with the collateral, as it’s their funds that would be seized first if any of the RToken’s collateral were to default.

The governance process designed by Reserve follows a transparent and democratic approach. It allows holders of RSR, to propose, discuss, and vote on changes to the protocol.

It is designed to be community-driven, which means anyone can propose changes to modify or improve an RToken. Once a proposal is submitted, RSR holders vote on it. If the proposal passes and meets the required criteria, the code to update the RToken can be executed (after a pre-defined delay period).

Governor Alexios is the protocol's recommended governor implementation, which is detailed next.

Reserve Governor Alexios

The Reserve team has deployed a recommended governance system for RTokens (Reserve Governor Alexios) that will be suggested to RToken deployers by default. This governance system is a slightly modified version of the OpenZeppelin Governor.

Governor Alexios allows RSR holders to participate in the decision-making process of the protocol by proposing, voting on, and executing proposals. It follows a delegation system where RSR holders can delegate their voting power to other addresses. This enables efficient participation in the decision-making process and increases voter turnout.

The governance process is divided into three sub-phases:

  1. Proposal: Proposals can include changes to the protocol's parameters, new feature implementations, or anything else that requires the approval of RSR holders. Proposals can be created by anyone who holds the minimum required amount of tokens.
  2. Vote: A vote is a decision made by a token holder on a proposal. Votes can be cast in favor, against, or abstain. Token holders can also delegate their voting power to another address to vote on their behalf.
  3. Execution: Once a proposal has been approved, it can be executed to perform the intended action.

A timelock component is introduced once a proposal is approved. This adds a configurable delay between the approval of a proposal and its execution, which allows RToken holders to make a decision before something is changed.

The following parameters can be configured for the governance process:

By default, the end-to-end process for approving & executing proposals is 8 days:

Within RSR Governor, each RToken can have different roles assigned to it—the Pauser, the Short Freezer, the Long Freezer, and the Guardian—which can be given to any Ethereum addresses by the RToken deployer/owner. Each have the ability to put their RToken’s system into certain states in the case of an attack, exploit, or bug. These states are:

For additional information, please refer to the System States + roles section.

Reserve Rights supply

Reserve Rights (RSR) has a fixed total supply of 100 billion tokens, out of which there are currently 50.6b in circulation. The remaining 49.4b tokens belong to the Slow Wallet.

The Slow Wallet is a locked wallet controlled by the Reserve project, used to fund RToken adoption initiatives. It's under the discretionary control of the Reserve team. However, it has a hard-coded 4-week delay after initiating each withdrawal transaction on the blockchain. Upon initiating a withdrawal transaction, the team announces the purpose of the withdrawal either through a public on-chain message or on social media. If RSR holders do not agree with the purpose of the withdrawal, they are able to sell their RSR in the 4-week period before the project is able to sell what they have withdrawn. The team can only access these withdrawn tokens after those 4 weeks.