Getting started

How it works

HoodPerp stitches together three on-chain primitives — a spot DEX, a settlement venue, and a thin Router contract — into one trading experience. Here's the full path from a stock token in your wallet to an open perp position.

The core flow#

1. Hold a tokenized stock

   You start with a Robinhood Chain stock token (e.g. AAPL, NVDA) or USDG in a self-custodial wallet.

2. Convert to USDG margin

   HoodPerp quotes a swap through Uniswap v4. The Router converts your stock token into USDG in one transaction — no manual approve-swap-deposit dance.

3. Deposit into your trading account

   The same transaction deposits USDG into your Lighter account as cross- margin collateral.

4. Enable trading (one-time)

   You approve a delegated L2 key with a single wallet signature. From then on, HoodPerp can place orders on your behalf without prompting for every trade — but can never withdraw your funds.

5. Trade perpetuals

   Open longs or shorts with leverage. Positions, margin, and PnL settle on Lighter's ZK order book.

The three layers#

1. Spot — Uniswap v4#

Stock ↔ USDG swaps route through Uniswap v4 pools on Robinhood Chain. The backend fetches a quote from the Uniswap Trading API and derives the exact pool parameters, so any USDG-paired token becomes swappable without a hardcoded registry.

2. Settlement — Lighter#

Perpetuals settle on Lighter, a ZK-rollup order book. Margin is held in USDG as cross-collateral. Orders are signed by a delegated L2 key so you don't sign every fill, while custody of funds remains with you.

3. Router — atomic swap-and-deposit#

The Router contract wraps the “convert stock → USDG → deposit” sequence into a single atomic call, so a partial failure can't leave your funds stranded mid-flow.