[TFIP-25] Bastion Trading as additional MM for TRU token

Proposals
1

Truefi Additional Market Maker

Introduction

Truefi has been a long time standing token with who was the pioneer in the uncollateralized and undercollateralized lending crypto space with prestigious centralized exchange listings.

However, as of recent, the volume of Truefi on exchanges has been falling. See for example on the flagship pair the Binance TRU USDT pair:

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Volumes in tokens have been steadily falling in Binance itself, and also in other exchanges. The token orderbooks can be improved across other exchanges such as Kraken and Coinbase where crypto is taking a forefront in United States with friendly policies. Also improvements can be made to order books for Bybit swaps where there can be a competitive derivatives market to Binance.

Bastion Trading

Bastion Trading has been trading cryptocurrencies since 2017 across various CEX and DEX platforms, as a proprietary trader and market maker. Bastion Trading is no stranger to Truefi being one of the first borrowers on the Truefi platform starting in 2021.

Currently Bastion Trading trades billions of dollars monthly across cryptocurrency tokens, coins, options, swaps and other derivatives on various centralised and decentralised exchanges. Bastion Trading also has provided market making services since 2018, and adjusting strategies across multiple market cycles.

Proposal

Bastion Trading aims to increase the liquidity profile of various CEX token and derivatives markets. The identified markets are to augment liquidity on Binance, while providing orderbook depth to Kraken spot markets, and Bybit swap markets. The goal is to increase order book health to encourage more volumes across trading venues for the TRU token. Given the state of the Truefi treasury in the timelock contract where a retainer model less feasible, Bastion Trading proposes the following TRU token loan with option market making contract (where Bastion Trading will provide the stablecoin side of the capital):

Token Loan Amount: 9,000,000 TRU

Tenure: 24 months from the market making start date.

Market Making Objectives:

On Touch Bid-Ask Spread: 30 bps

Minimum Depth Provided per 2% from mid-market: USDT 40,000 across all venues

Target Venues: Binance, Bybit Swap, & Kraken

SLA (Uptime): 24/365 95%

Call options provided by Truefi: there are two call options and each gives Bastion Trading the option (not obligation) to purchase the loaned tokens 24 months from the market making start date at following strike prices:

Call Option 1: The option to purchase 55% of loaned tokens (5,500,000 TRU) at strike price 1, which has 5% premium to the spot price reference of when Bastion receives the tokens from Truefi.

Call Option 2: The option to purchase 35% of loaned tokens (3,500,000 TRU) at strike price 1, which has 15% premium to the spot price reference of when Bastion receives the tokens from Truefi.

Next Governance Steps

As the proposals does not fall under the simplified governance exemptions, the proposal will require the following steps:

1. Forum Posting: A 72-hour posting period on the forum to allow the community to provide feedback.

2. Snapshot Vote: A 48-hour Snapshot vote will be conducted with the options: “OK to vote on Tally,” “Not OK to vote on Tally,” and “Abstain.” At least 5% of staked TRU must participate in this Snapshot vote to meet the quorum.

3. Amendment Period: If the 5% quorum is met, with a majority negative vote, a 72-hour period will follow to allow for any amendments or discussions before the proposal is posted to Tally.

4. Tally Vote: Otherwise, the proposal will be posted to Tally for the final vote.

2

I think it is a good start to bring more trading activity to Truefi token. And good to get liquidity on other exchanges than Binance.

How does the foundation keep up with any tokens later to be returned from market makers?

3

Hey Bastion

TL;DR – The draft below is a revised agreement that we believe improves risk–reward symmetry for the TrueFi DAO while still giving Bastion Trading meaningful, achievable upside compared with the original two‑option offer posted on the forum and re‑marks the up‑front option premium at 7.5 % of notional (675 k TRU ≈ $31.7 k). Some slight changes to the economics— albeit loan size remains unchanged (9 M TRU ≈ $423 k). We want to modify the following areas of the agreement collateral (106 k USDC), KPI targets, revenue‑share and penalty ladder. Governance flow—remains intact. Citations are provided for price data, liquidity‑making norms, option‑ladder precedents, volatility statistics, and maker‑rebate benchmarks. We agree the trading venues make sense. However, is there a reason Bastion didn’t include Coinbase here?

1 Executive Summary

TrueFi’s TRU token trades around $0.045 – $0.051 across major venues, with a blended mid‑price of $0.047 on May 13 2025.

A 9 M TRU loan therefore equals ≈ $423 k, collateralized at ~25 % (106 k USDC).

Liquidity will be improved on Binance, Bybit (perps) and Kraken via 24‑month market‑making by Bastion Trading.

Compensation is a four‑tranche call‑option ladder with strikes at +10 % / +35 % / +75 % / +200 % over a 30‑day TWAP, vesting only upon tight spread/depth KPIs and measurable volume growth.

A stepped maker‑P&L share (25 → 40 %) aligns both parties as volumes scale.

2 Parties

Role Entity Wallet
Lender / Counterparty TrueFi DAO Treasury (Timelock) 0xDAO‑treasury‑address
Borrower / Market‑Maker Bastion Trading Group SA 0xBastion‑MM‑address

3 Loan Terms

Item Specification
Principal Lent 9 000 000 TRU (≈ $423 000 @ $0.047)(CoinGecko)
Tenor 24 months from token transfer (“Start Date”)
Purpose Exclusive inventory for TRU quoting, buffering & hedging
Early Recall DAO may recall at month 6 or 12 if any KPI < 80 %
Collateral 106,000 USDC (≈ 25 % of notional) escrowed on‑chain
Pricing Note USD conversions fixed at $0.047 TRU snapshot (13 May 2025)

4 Liquidity Performance KPIs

  • Top‑of‑Book Spread: ≀ 30 bps (1‑min median across venues)(Caladan)
  • Depth ± 2 %: ≄ 40 k USDT aggregated depth(Caladan)
  • Uptime: ≄ 95 % of minutes (API heartbeat)
  • Volume Growth: vs 90‑day rolling baseline; 10 / 30 / 50 % thresholds tie to vesting.
  • Penalty Ladder: each full week any KPI is sub‑target → unvested option size − 2 %.

5 Call‑Option Compensation (middle‑ground ladder)

Tranche Size Strike vs 30‑day TWAP Vesting Milestone
A 2.25 M TRU + 10 % KPIs ≄ 90 % first 6 mo
B 2.25 M TRU + 35 % KPIs ≄ 92 % (mo 1‑12) & ≄ 10 % vol‑growth
C 2.25 M TRU + 75 % KPIs ≄ 94 % (mo 1‑18) & ≄ 30 % vol‑growth
D 2.25 M TRU + 200 % KPIs ≄ 95 % (full 24 mo) & ≄ 50 % vol‑growth

Strike formula: max( 30‑day TWAP × (1 + markup), spot on exercise )

Expiry: 30 days post‑maturity. Un‑vested/un‑exercised tranches revert to Treasury.

Option premium: 675 k TRU (7.5 % ≈ $31.7 k)—reflects lower time‑value at deeper strikes (70‑90 % implied vol typical for long‑tail tokens).

6 Revenue‑Share & Reporting

Stage (vested tranche) DAO share of maker rebates + spread P&L
None / only A 25 %
B vested 30 %
C vested 35 %
D vested 40 %

Maker rebates run 0.00 % to −0.01 % (i.e., paid to maker) at top‑tier status on Binance and similar programs.

Transparency: weekly quote/fill CSV (IPFS); monthly KPI attestations (Kaiko or Coin Metrics); Merkle‑root anchoring on‑chain.

7 Economic Justification

Component $ Value Evidence
Loan notional $423 k CoinGecko/Binance/Kraken composite prices and volume stats (CoinGecko, Binance, Kraken)
Collateral (25 %) $106 k Below standard haircut in MM loans(Caladan)
Option premium 7.5 % $31.7 k Black‑Scholes at 70 – 90 % vol & OTM strikes(Caladan, Deribit Insights)
Maker‑rebate upside −0.005 % – −0.01 % typical on Binance LP tiers(Binance, Binance)

This ladder preserves remains comfortably OTM, limiting hedging sell‑pressure while giving Bastion credible upside

4

As we posted, the market price of the token is changing somewhat dramatically versus the proposal time, and creating different economics.

Taking into consideration your comments: at this time to reflect the loan size being 9 million tokens, we can adjust the terms from the original to:

Option 1: 2 years from MM start date at a strike price of 115% of the spot reference price and the quantity of 4,500,000 tokens

Option 2: 2 years from MM start date at a strike price of 130% of the spot reference price to the quantity of 4,500,000 tokens

In terms of the trading venues, we can add the term to be Coinbase or Kraken (and can switch) as we recognize that likely Coinbase is the better of the two for those who need access to trading.

We’d like to note that Bastion has never defaulted on loans even in the market turmoil of 2022 and has also current borrowings on Idle Finance and is of course current on all borrowings.

5

This looks great! We as an operating team see Coinbase as more important than Kraken at this time, so prioritizing MM there would be ideal. I think the only thing we would like to add would be few bps (<5%) for the option premium based on the firms IV calculation for $TRU. This is standard and we can add these to the total token supply minted given it will be small. Something that still prices the calls below fair value given Bastion Trading has been a long standing ecosystem partner.

6

We will change the strikes from 115% to 117% and 130% to 132%. We will post on snapshot as well.

7

Okay, I think this looks good to push to Snapshot

8

Changed title from [TFIP-24} to [TFIP-25] since Snapshot for Type3 proposal has been using TFIP-24 in its title.

1 Like
9

Please note the Tally vote has been published!

Voting looks to start arount 6:30 AM UCT on Friday.

Tally | TrueFi | [TFIP-25] Bastion Trading as Additional MM for TRU Token

Please note a small clerical error on the Tally and Snapshot - where the for the strike price 2 is referred as strike price 1. Please note the two strikes will be 117% and 132% (1 and 2 defined strikes).

The reference price will be the price of TRUUSDT on Binance at the time if the proposal is passed and when its executed

10

Hello, Bastion Trading.
Today we get a news from Bianance that the spot trading pair TRU/BTC will be delisted due to poor liquidity and trading volume.
These few months, many holders can see the price of $TRU dump much harder than other tokens, but difficult to pump when the market recover.
The holders begin to be worried about $TRU will be listed to the monitoring list on Biannance then delist due to poor liquidity and trading volume.

11

TRUBTC has/had a bid offer spread of 2.5%, hard to create volumes with takers unwilling cross such spread.

On the important pair of TRU USDT, we are well aware of the delistings that Binance is doing and of course our work (along with DWF) is to endevaour this doesn’t happen.

2 Likes
12

The Tally [TFIP-25] has been executed.

Thanks for all the support on this!

2 Likes
13

Thank you! The TrueFi community is looking forward to working with the Bastion Team.