> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://the-heist-1.gitbook.io/the-heist-docs/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://the-heist-1.gitbook.io/the-heist-docs/getting-started/what-is-the-heist.md).

# What Is The Heist

Most tokens that try to hold a "target price" rely on someone showing up to defend it — a foundation, a market maker, a committee with a multisig. The moment that someone stops showing up, the target breaks.

The Heist takes people out of that loop entirely. Every rule that keeps its token near target, every rule that pays out rewards, every rule that grows the reserves — all of it is written directly into the contracts and triggers automatically off real trading activity. Nobody has to be watching for the system to keep doing its job.

## The core loop, in one picture

```mermaid
flowchart LR
    A[LOOT trades above target] -->|new LOOT gets minted| B[Half sold into the market]
    B -->|proceeds| C[Redemption floor grows]
    A -->|other half| D[Paid to stakers]
    E[LOOT trades below target] -->|extra sell cost + buying pressure| A
    C -->|anyone can trade in\nLOOT for a payout, any time| E
    F[Every trade, either direction] --> G[Protocol's own liquidity deepens]
```

Read it left to right: when demand pushes LOOT's price up, the protocol **creates more and sells some of it**, capturing that upside as permanent backing instead of letting it evaporate into pure speculation. When price drifts down, a **redemption floor** — real WETH sitting in a dedicated pool — gives every holder a guaranteed reason to buy back in: LOOT is never worth less than its fair share of that floor, and **redemptions can never make that share smaller** — it's otherwise built to climb, too.

## The two tokens, in plain terms

**LOOT** is the token whose price the whole system is built around. It's completely ordinary under the hood — no hidden transfer tax, no blacklist, no freeze switch baked into the token itself. Every mechanism that manages its price lives around it, in the trading pool and the Printer — so LOOT behaves exactly like any other token everywhere else: in your wallet, in a lending app, anywhere.

**MERRY** is the reward token. There will only ever be 100,000 of them — that's locked in permanently, not just promised. You earn MERRY by providing liquidity or by holding one of a small set of fixed allocations, and you put it to work by staking it in **the Hideout**, which is where new LOOT actually reaches real people.

## The four parts that matter most

1. [**Genesis**](/the-heist-docs/how-it-works/genesis.md) — a one-time, 72-hour window at launch where early depositors get an initial share of LOOT, with longer lock-ups earning a bigger slice.
2. [**The Printer**](/the-heist-docs/how-it-works/the-peg-and-the-printer.md) — the automatic system that creates new LOOT when the market says it's worth more than target. It only ever reacts to real on-chain trading data, never an outside price source.
3. [**The Hideout**](/the-heist-docs/how-it-works/the-hideout.md) — where MERRY holders stake to earn a share of every new LOOT batch plus a real WETH payout, with a loyalty bonus for staying in.
4. [**The Floor**](/the-heist-docs/how-it-works/the-floor.md) — the safety net. It's funded from several different directions at once, and anyone can cash out against it, any time, for free.

Everything else — [trading fees](/the-heist-docs/how-it-works/trading-and-dynamic-fees.md), [farming & voting](/the-heist-docs/how-it-works/gauge-farms-and-voting.md), [the protocol's own liquidity](/the-heist-docs/how-it-works/protocol-owned-liquidity.md), and the [optional yield vaults](/the-heist-docs/yield-vaults/overview.md) — exists to make those four parts work better and grow faster.

Next: [Key Concepts](/the-heist-docs/getting-started/key-concepts.md) — quick definitions for terms used throughout the rest of these docs.


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