For the complete documentation index, see llms.txt. This page is also available as Markdown.

What is Butane?

Synthetic assets on Cardano, backed by native token collateral.

Butane documentation header

Butane is a synthetic assets protocol on Cardano. You lock Cardano native tokens as collateral and mint synthetics against them, or stake synthetics to earn their market's savings rate.

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New in V2

  • Rate caps. When you borrow, you choose the highest borrow rate you are willing to pay. See Rate cap.

  • Redemptions. If the market rate rises above a CDP's cap, any user can redeem against it: they repay part of its debt and take collateral worth the repayment, adjusted by the market's redemption share. You can redeem from Positions, or through Swap. See Redeem.

  • Treasury swaps. Buy a synthetic with the reserve assets that back it, or sell it back, at a fixed rate. See Swap.

Multi-asset collateral, staking for the savings rate and action composability work as they did in V1.

Synthetic assets

Synthetics are tokenized derivatives. Each one tracks the price of an underlying asset through on-chain price feeds, which gives you exposure to the asset without holding it.

A synthetic can follow a single asset, a basket of assets, or the inverse of another asset's price. Synthetics can be staked to earn their market's savings rate, and some markets also support fixed-rate swaps against assets held in the protocol treasury.

Collateralized debt positions

You borrow synthetics through collateralized debt positions (CDPs). You open a CDP by locking native tokens and minting the synthetic as debt. Each market sets which tokens it accepts as collateral and how much each one can borrow.

Debt accrues interest at the market's borrow rate, limited by a rate cap you choose. A CDP without enough collateral can be liquidated, and one whose rate cap the market rate has passed can be redeemed against. Borrow explains both.

When you lock ADA as collateral, you keep its staking rights and continue to earn Cardano staking rewards. To delegate your ADA, see Lace's guide to staking with Lace.

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