When analyzing a trading setup, I’m used to breaking it down into three layers: Narrative Layer / Cash Flow Layer / Structural Layer. In that “Wife Economy” article, these correspond to “Story, Payment, Contract” — fundamentally, it’s all about how to organize desires and distribution among people.

This project counts as one with some “trading ethics” — at the very least, it tells you the mechanics, and you can learn from those mechanics through feedback. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. The only downside is that the mechanism is a bit complex, but I’ll get to that gradually.

The mechanism isn’t hard to grasp: every player is a bandit running away with gold bars, holding $GOLD in hand and carrying USDT at the waist as bodyguard wages.

Every 6 hours, the sheriff randomly conducts a Raid, confiscating 10% of all bandits’ USDT in the city to buy gold bars, which are then redistributed to the survivors.

In other words, as long as you survive, you’ll get richer. If you can’t keep up with margin calls, you’re wiped out; dead positions are fed to the living.

So, who defines these “dead positions”?

That brings us to the liquidation threshold. Suppose you hold $1,000 worth of Gold; you’re required to stake at least $100 in USDT. After a Raid, if both the amount and price of Gold go up, your required margin level also increases. Once your USDT drops below the 10% requirement, you’re instantly liquidated — all your USDT and GOLD are confiscated.

- Part goes into the protocol’s own liquidity & Treasury
- Part is used to buy back and burn $GOLD
- Part is redistributed to surviving token holders

If you don’t keep an eye on your margin and top up, your forced liquidation margin is destroyed, you’re liquidated and become a dead position. Continuous passive buying + random forced de-leveraging + exit friction fees — at this point, does this sound familiar?

This fits the Pa Jiao [trading] principle: “Cutting off the head and tail, leaving flow in the middle.” You’re restricted by the “head cut” — your whole position is dragged by the marginal buying power of the 10% premium margin. This is the liquidity in the middle, but it’s not your own liquidity anymore; it’s the protocol’s. As for the tail, it’s simple: if you want to exit, you have to pay a head-cutting fee and queue up to exit slowly.

Of course, this setup has its downsides: there aren’t enough game theory points, and there’s no obvious hook to attract incremental external capital. Let’s see if there’s room for improvement going forward.