Staking and Yield

Axiom Prime is the economic engine of the protocol. It is where users stake their assets, earn yield, and gain governance power. The same capital that earns yield is also the capital that protects the integrity of Axiom’s prediction markets.

Axiom Prime is designed to be simple to use for normal users, while the underlying mechanics remain deeply robust and secure.

Bootstrap Phase: Axiom Points

Solving the cold start with active volume

During the initial Bootstrap Mode, passive staking in Axiom Prime is temporarily disabled. Instead, the protocol implements a volume-based revenue share program to incentivize the most critical component of a prediction market: active trading liquidity.

While the protocol builds momentum, the 1% commission that typically flows to the staking vaults is instead treated as a weekly reward pool for active traders. Users do not stake capital to earn yield during this phase; they stake action.

How Axiom Points Works

The system operates on 7-Day Epochs. Users accumulate Axiom Points based on their trading activity, which reset to zero at the end of each week.

  • Trading Points: Points are generated based on the USD value of every wager placed. This ensures fairness regardless of fluctuations in the settlement asset price.

    • Ratio: $1 USD Wagered = 100 Points.

  • Referral Points: To encourage organic growth, referrers earn points equal to 10% of the volume points generated by the users they refer.

Yield Distribution

At the end of every epoch, the accumulated protocol commission (1% of all settled market volume) is distributed to users proportional to their share of the total global points.

User Payout=(User’s Weekly PointsTotal Global Weekly Points)×Total Weekly Commission Pool\text{User Payout} = \left( \frac{\text{User's Weekly Points}}{\text{Total Global Weekly Points}} \right) \times \text{Total Weekly Commission Pool}

Users claim these rewards directly via their dashboard, crediting the funds instantly to their Axiom account balance for withdrawal or re-wagering.

Transition to Staking

The Axiom Points program is exclusive to the Bootstrap Phase. Once the protocol transitions to full decentralization:

  1. Points generation halts.

  2. Revenue shifts: The 1% commission is redirected to the Axiom Prime Vaults to activate passive staking.

  3. Legacy Status: Users with high lifetime points accumulated during this phase are granted some special rewards, recognizing their role in bootstrapping the network's liquidity.

Through Axiom Prime onchain governance, stakers may vote to continue the Axiom Points program after the vaults launch, using an allocation of Prime commissions.

What Axiom Prime Does

Axiom Prime serves three purposes:

  1. Yield Stakers earn yield from market activity. Yield is not inflationary and does not come from emissions or external DeFi strategies. It comes entirely from:

    • Market commissions

    • Penalties applied to dishonest governance participants

  2. Governance Power Stakers gain percentile-based governance rights. The top 50 percent by USD stake can:

    • Create markets

    • Propose outcomes

    • Challenge incorrect proposals

    • Vote in initial resolution rounds

  3. Resolution Security Axiom Prime determines who is eligible to resolve markets and how much weight their votes carry. This allows the protocol to operate without oracles or governance tokens.

This creates a system where the economic foundation is tied directly to the accuracy of truth on the platform.

Staking and Share Tokens

Users stake XRP into the XRP vault and receive non-transferable share tokens (aXRP). These tokens:

  • Represent their claim on the vault

  • Automatically increase in value as yield accrues

  • Determine their governance weight

  • Cannot be sold, transferred, or delegated

The share token structure is based on the standard ERC-4626 pattern, ensuring fairness, gas efficiency, and security.

When more stablecoin liquidity becomes available on the XRPL EVM Sidechain, additional vaults (RLUSD, USDC, USDT or others) will be added, but during bootstrap only the XRP vault is active.

Tokens deposited in vaults never leave the vaults until the user withdraws them. Staked tokens are used purely as a proof of economic weight rather than used in any on/offchain DeFi strategies.

How Yield Accrues

Yield is added to the vaults automatically as fees flow into the system.

When fees enter a vault:

  1. Total assets increase

  2. Share count stays the same

  3. The share price rises

  4. Stakers’ positions automatically grow in value

Example:

  • Vault assets: 100,000 XRP

  • Shares: 90,000 aXRP

  • Share price: 1.111

If the vault receives 5,000 XRP in fees:

  • New assets: 105,000 XRP

  • Shares: 90,000

  • New share price: 1.167

Every staker’s position becomes worth more instantly, with no action required.

Withdrawals automatically redeem shares at the current higher price.

This share mechanism means a staker will never withdraw less XRP than they initially deposited.

Where Yield Comes From

Yield flows into Axiom Prime from:

  • Staker commission (1 to 3 percent of the market pool, set by protocol governance)

  • Penalties from incorrect proposers and voters

  • Unclaimed or long-tail protocol earnings

  • Optional future external incentives

There are no emissions and no incentive tokens.

This yield source is organic, real, and directly tied to market activity.

Percentile Snapshots

Axiom uses a snapshot system to determine eligibility for governance actions.

Every epoch (default: 24 hours), the protocol:

  • Calculates each staker’s USD stake

  • Sorts all stakers

  • Defines the top 50 percent

  • Stores this snapshot immutably

Percentiles determine:

  • Who may create markets

  • Who may propose resolutions

  • Who may challenge proposals

  • Who may vote in the initial voting phase

Snapshots are essential for security and for preventing last-minute stake manipulation.

Axiom uses an optimistic offchain snapshot model with onchain fraud proofs, which keeps costs low but remains fully decentralized and verifiable.

Two-Epoch Locking: Creation and Resolution

To prevent gaming, Axiom uses a dual-epoch structure:

  1. Creation Epoch is recorded when the market is created

  2. Resolution Epoch is locked when the first proposal is submitted

Only stakers in the resolution epoch snapshot are allowed to vote or participate in resolution.

This prevents exploits where a user stakes heavily only during the vote, or withdraws before penalties apply.

Resolution participants are temporarily prevented from withdrawing until the market finalizes.

Multi-Vault Future

During bootstrap:

  • Only the XRP vault is active

  • All Axiom Prime yield flows to the XRP vault

Once stablecoins (e.g. RLUSD) gain more liquidity on the XRPL EVM Sidechain:

  • Additional vaults can be added

  • Commissions can be split proportionally across vaults

  • Yield remains denominated in each vault’s native asset

This design allows Axiom to scale with the XRP ecosystem without fragmenting governance.

Governance Weight and Voting

Governance weight is based purely on USD stake value, not on token count or address count. This prevents Sybil attacks and vote manipulation. Addresses with more stake have more responsibility and more influence, which aligns honesty with self-interest.

This is a core principle of Axiom.

Why Axiom Prime Matters

Axiom Prime provides:

  • The yield that makes staking meaningful

  • The governance weight that makes resolution decentralized

  • The penalty model that enforces honesty

  • The snapshot system that keeps power fair

  • The capital base that ensures truth remains economically protected

Without Axiom Prime, the prediction market layer cannot be decentralized or secure. Prime is the foundation of Axiom’s truth economy.

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