How Etch works

Etch launches tokens that carry their own media. A token's image, animation, sound, website or 3D model is stored in Robinhood Chain's state, as the code of a contract, rather than linked from a server or IPFS. The token's image(), sound() and friends return playable data: links, so any wallet, app or contract can read the file back byte for byte, for as long as the chain exists.

One transaction does everything, in this order:

1. Each media file is written as its own contract.
2. The token is created: 1,000,000,000 supply, no owner, nothing mutable afterwards.
3. A Uniswap v4 pool opens holding the whole supply.
4. Your buy, if you make one, goes in first. Nobody can trade before it.

The chain caps what fits in one transaction; the launch page measures your launch against it as you build it.

The pool is the bonding curve. The launcher puts the whole supply into a single Uniswap v4 position, from the starting price down to the lowest price v4 allows. Each buy walks the price up; Uniswap holds the ETH. It behaves like a constant-product curve with about 2 ETH of virtual liquidity at the start: buying half the supply costs about 2 ETH, buying 80% about 8.

There is no graduation. The token trades on Uniswap from its first block, so any Uniswap interface or router can trade it, and the liquidity never moves. The launcher has no function that removes liquidity; the only changes it ever makes to a position are the first deposit and zero-size updates that collect fees.

Every trade pays a 1% pool fee to the position the launcher holds. Collecting it is permissionless: anyone can press Collect on a token's page, and the split is fixed in the contract.

$ETCH, the platform token, was launched on Etch itself as token number one. The buyback reserve is spent by a keeper that sets a minimum price from the price it sees, so nobody can push the price up and make the platform buy at the top. The keeper can only buy $ETCH and burn it; it can't move the reserve anywhere else.

If a creator's wallet refuses ETH (some contracts do), their share is credited instead of blocking the collection, and they can claim it from their portfolio at any time.

Files are written with a CREATE whose code is a stop byte followed by the file, so they can never run as contracts. Robinhood Chain allows contracts of about 96 KB, well past Ethereum's 24 KB, which is what lets a single file reach 90 KB. The site serves each file from chain state at /api/media/<token>/<kind>, and every token page can verify the bytes against the chain.

Websites run sandboxed: inline CSS and JavaScript only, an opaque origin, no cookies or storage, and no requests except the token's own live numbers at /api/t/<token>.

Any browser wallet works for trading. A full-media launch is a transaction of up to 95 KB, and some extension wallets won't sign one that large. For those, Etch offers a launch wallet: a key made and kept in your browser, as Scribe does on Solana. Fund it, launch, then withdraw or export the key. It never leaves your browser.

Selling signs an EIP-2612 permit and sells in the same transaction, so there is never a separate approval.

The contracts are unaudited until stated otherwise. Tokens launched here are memecoins with no promise of value; a creator can sell the tokens they bought. Liquidity can't be pulled, but prices can fall to near zero. Nothing here is financial advice. Etch is not affiliated with Robinhood Markets.