How TidePools Works
When a user makes a swap on Uniswap, a tiny fee is taken out of the trade. These fees are given to people who make swapping possible, like you. We can create strategies to collect as many of these fees as possible.
TidePools.io manages your Uniswap V3 liquidity pools for you to get the best possible returns. (skip to technical version)
TidePools.io makes sure your crypto is always working for you.
Normal Uniswap V3 positions need constant babysitting in case price moves out of your range and you stop earning fees. Not with TidePools.io - We adjust your position for you!
TidePools.io adjusts each position when necessary to maximize returns.
As volatility grows, the price range of the position widens to keep profit generation high while at the same time reducing swapping fees. As volality shrinks, the price range of the position narrows to keep profit generation high. And all of this happens automatically with no input from you!
Depositing in a TidePool is easy.
You can deposit with either tokenA and tokenB or just one of the tokens. If you want to be in the WETH/USDC pool but only have USDC, no problem! Just approve & deposit USDC and tidepool will do the rest. When you withdraw, you'll get a mix of WETH and USDC equivalent to the value you put in.
That's it! We want to make this as easy as possible.
Technical Version
TidePools.io uses a keeper (bot) to monitor every tidepool.
It makes sure the position is always in range by watching the needsRebalance() function. If the position is out-of-range, a Rebalance will occur. Anyone can call the rebalance() function, which is only available if 7 days have passed or the position is out-of-range. This means that the contracts will always be available for use, forever!
Every tidepool created verifies a valid Uniswap V3 pool with the Uniswap factory contract. There's no way to create a fake/scam tidepool.
Each tidepool starts with a range of 20, 60, or 200 ticks.
Tick width (percent difference in price) will be different for each fee tier: 0.1%, 0.6%, or 2%. Starting width for a pool with 0.05% fee will have a starting range of +-10% price. Starting width for a pool with a 0.3% fee will have a starting range of +-13% price. Starting width for a pool with a 1% fee will have a starting range of +-20% price.
It doesn't matter that the starting ranges are different percentages of price because the tidepools adjust with volatility.
Less volatile pairs will automatically have smaller ranges, while volatile pairs will have large ranges no matter their fee tier. The goal is to rebalance() roughly once per week. This makes sure the pools constantly adjust for changing market conditions. The pools will rebalance as often as they need to stay in range.
When the rebalance() function runs, one of two things happens:
If the position is in-range: Liquidity is removed. The width of the range will shrink by 1 tick. The keeper will swap to a 50/50 position with a maximum of 1% slippage. If the 1% slippage is hit, the keeper will stop swapping and there'll be unused balance on the contract until the next rebalance(). Liquidity is minted in the new range. This makes sure that the position gets more concentrated for maximum fees as volatility drops!
If the position is out-of-range: Liqudity is removed. The width of the range will increase by 10 ticks. The keeper will swap to a 50/50 position with a maximum of 1% slippage. If the 1% slippage is hit, the keeper will stop swapping and there'll be unused balance on the contract until the next rebalance(). Liquidity is minted in the new range. Increasing the range with volatility means we swap less often, reducing fees & slippage while maintaining maximum fee generation!
Newly created tidepools may rebalance() several times in the first few days as they find optimal volatility settings.
Mature tidepools will rebalance() a little more than once per week. Some tidepools will have ranges wider than 50% of price due to high volatility, while others will stay in tight ranges forever. It's all automatic!
Deposits can use any amount of either/both token0 and token1.
Withdraws are given in the proportions of the tidepool position, which can vary from 1%/99% to 99%/1% token0/token1.
Rewards are automatically harvested and compounded back into the position! Compounding happens with every rebalance, deposit, or withdraw.
TidePools.io takes 5% of the profit to pay the gas costs of the keeper running rebalance(), frontend improvements/hosting, and advertising.
Volatility protection: Tidepools rebalance() off the Uniswap pool
In volatile markets, that's a huge slippage risk! TidePools.io force a maximum of 1% slippage on each rebalance(). Uniswap pools have a "swap until X slippage is met" feature that we use. If we hit the slippage limit, the tidepool stops swapping. The tidepool will do its best to stay active, but will sit out with the majority of the position in extreme volatility. When volatility goes back to normal levels, the tidepool will re-mint the position. In addition, the widening range makes sure we don't swap too often so we save on fees/slippage.
MEV protection
Since the tidepools rebalance() once per week, could someone uses a flash loan manipulate the pool to take 1% slippage from us? No, they would be eaten alive in both trading fees and slippage of their own if they wanted to try this. The economics aren't worth it for them. MEV bots look for juicier targets, like when someone allows 50% slippage on big trades.
Security
TidePools.io doesn't have any special permissions. I can't change the contracts in any way or call any function you can't. This prevents me from getting hacked and losing the governance permissions, and it also means that if the contracts were hacked they can't do anything either. TidePools.io only creates pools off the official Uniswap V3 contract to prevent bad pool creation. I have war-gamed out scenarios to try and prevent economic exploits such as MEV, and rewards are automatically distributed before a user deposits so someone can't flash deposit to steal them (the Popsicle Finance exploit).
TidePools.io contracts were audited with Slither and MythX, no security holes were found.
Why not any audits by [Well Known Audit Company]? I've used them many times, and they couldn't find the sun on a clear day. If any hacks/exploits are found, tidepools will be withdraw only on the frontend and I'll do my best to make users whole.
Have a question that wasn't answered here? Let me know on Twitter!