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openyield/docs/freeholders/bonds.md
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cloudinit-bot 2ef3f2e39f docs(P03): complete freeholders docs + reference phase — REQ-027 complete
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councils-voice, bonds, partner-spectrum, anchor-preview, index) + 2
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---ci---
project: oy
phase: 3
milestone: v0.3
status: complete
tag_base: v0.2.x
phase_role: execution
requirements:
  covered: [REQ-027]
  partial: []
---/ci---
2026-08-17 22:17:07 +00:00

2.3 KiB

Bonds

A Mesh Bond (REQ-021, vision §17) is a Stand-issued instrument that pays a coupon to its holder over a term and returns the principal at maturity. The coupon is bounded by a mission-locked cap and floor: 8% upper cap, 0% floor (locked CouponCapBps = 800 and CouponFloorBps = 0 in x/bond). The cap exists so the mesh cannot become a speculative market; the floor exists so the coupon cannot go negative.

The coupon clamp

The coupon is clamped to [floor, cap] by the Clamp helper in x/bond (same shape as the Fee Covenant clamp): a coupon above 8% is reduced to 8%; a coupon below 0% is raised to 0%; a coupon in range is unchanged. The clamp is a tested invariant: below floor → floor, above cap → cap, in range → unchanged. This is the Mission Lock's expression in the capital layer.

Why a cap

OpenYield is a public-good mesh for real production, not a speculation engine. An uncapped coupon market would let a Stand offer arbitrarily high coupons to attract Bread, turning the mesh into a speculative race. The 8% cap bounds the coupon at a level consistent with real production returns, and the Mission Lock makes the cap non-amendable — no Council vote can raise it. The mesh says coupon and real return, never the passive-value or standalone-metric words banned by the lexicon.

The bond lifecycle

A Bond moves through five states (locked BondStatus enum in x/bond): Issued → Active → Matured, with Defaulted and Repaid as terminal paths. The issuer is a Stand (referenced by stand-id); the principal is denominated in Grain. The bond market is governed by the Stand Council for the issuing Stand.

Coming in v0.3 P5

v0.3 P5 (REQ-026) extends the bond market with Growth Bonds (a coupon that grows over the term, still clamped to the 8% cap) and a secondary market (Buy/Sell orders on issued bonds). The 8% / 0% consts are unchanged — the D-028 regression firewall guarantees v0.3 cannot alter the v0.2 mission-locked ceiling. See Partner Spectrum for how Partners relate to the bond market, and Anchor Preview for the institutional tier.