Tokens & Bonding Curves
Anyone can turn a topic into a market. Type a name, and a few seconds later that idea has a token, a price, a chart and a treasury, with no listing, approval or market maker involved.
The price comes from a curve rather than an order book. Every buy mints new tokens and nudges the price up; every sell burns them and moves it back down. So there is always a price, always liquidity, and no counterparty to find: you are trading with the contract itself, which holds enough reserve to buy the entire supply back. Because the price is a function of supply, tokens bought before the supply grows cost less.
The numbers to remember
| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Curve | buy(x) = 0.001 · e^(0.00000001 · x) − 0.0009999, in AE per token |
| Sell curve | sell(x) = buy(x) · 0.995 |
| Price of a trade | The integral of the curve across the supply you mint into or burn out of |
| Launch price | 0.0000001 AE per token, at supply 0 |
| Spread | 1% of the curve value: 0.5% to the community DAO, 0.5% to affiliation |
| Instant round trip | Returns 0.99502 of what you paid, before gas |
| Affiliation split | 0.300% / 0.125% / 0.050% / 0.025% across four referral levels; burned if unreferred |
| ProtocolDAO reward | Minted to the buyer on every buy, proportional to its AE value |
| Token standard | AEX-9, 18 decimals |
| Solvency | The sell curve is strictly below the buy curve at every supply, so the reserve always covers the full supply |
Where to start
- Bonding Curves: the formula, integrated by hand, with two worked buys. Everything else assumes it.
- Curve Parameters & Units: read before you call a contract, so you are not off by 10^18.
- Fees & Slippage: the three things that separate the price you see from the price you get.
- Risks: read before you buy anything.
To launch a token now, open superhero.com/trends/create (opens in a new tab); to buy one, start from the trending list (opens in a new tab).
Pages
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Community Tokens | What a token is, which contracts it deploys, and what holding one gets you |
| Bonding Curves | The curve formula, its integral, worked numeric examples, slippage, and how it compares with linear and constant-product curves |
| Curve Parameters & Units | Aettos, token decimals, Frac.frac, and a reference implementation that matches the contract |
| Create a Token (Dashboard) | The web form: both input modes, name normalisation, collection derivation, costs and failure modes |
| Create a Token (CLI) | The same deployment from a terminal, every error path, and a raw SDK example |
| Collections & Naming Rules | Namespaces, character rules, and why a name was rejected |
| Buying & Selling | Quoting, minimal_return_required, AEX-9 allowances, and a complete SDK trade |
| Fees & Slippage | The 1% spread, curve slippage with worked numbers, slippage guards, and gas |
| Reading a Token Page | What each panel tells you, and how to read market cap on a bonding curve |
| The Trending Score | The momentum signal: formula, weights, caps, eligibility gate and refresh cadence |
| Portfolio & PnL | Holdings, snapshots, PnL fields, and why a large position is worth less than its quoted value |
| Transaction History | Querying trades by token, account or both, and verifying them on-chain |
| Risks | The 1% starting loss, reflexivity, thin communities and contract risk |
Related
- Value flow: how AE moves through the whole platform, of which the curve is one part
- DAO overview: the treasury every token creates, and who controls it
- Affiliation rewards: where the other half of the spread goes
- Token sale contract: the entrypoint-level reference for the sale contract
- Tokens API: the REST surface for tokens, prices and rankings