How attn Works (Non-Technical)

This page explains how attn works end-to-end without going into program code.

There are three main pieces:

Revenue accounts – where your onchain income lands.
Products – advances and credit lines written against that income.
attnUSD – the USD share token held by liquidity providers on the other side.

Everything else (PT, YT, vault accounting) exists to make these three behave in a predictable way.

1. The actors

There are four main actors:

Projects – apps, DAOs, creators, DePIN networks.
Launchpads / partners – who help projects launch and structure products.
Liquidity providers (LPs) – who bring stablecoins and want yield.
attn protocol – the onchain coordination layer that:
- hosts revenue accounts,
- wires up repayment rules,
- interfaces with PT/YT tokenisation,
- and runs the attnUSD vault.

2. Step one: set up a revenue account

A project connects its income to an attn revenue account.

Examples of revenue sources:

Pump.fun creator rewards,
protocol fee switches (DEX, lending, perp, infra fees),
x402 AI or DePIN income routed onchain,
other programmatic revenue streams.

The revenue account is:

a jointly governed vault:
- signers: the project (multisig/DAO) + attn,
configured with simple rules:
- if no position is open, the project can withdraw freely,
- if a position is open, an agreed share of new revenues goes first to repayment.

On top of that, the account can:

move unencumbered balances into safe onchain yield sources (e.g. staked SOL, yield-bearing stablecoins),
while keeping funds instantly available for withdrawals and collateral.

From the project’s point of view, this feels like:

“this is where my revenues land”,
“this account has a built-in rule set if I borrow against those revenues”,
“idle balances earn something by default”.

3. Step two: attn measures your revenue and sets limits

Before you can borrow, attn:

reads your historical revenue data (onchain traces, indexers, dashboards),
looks at:
- level and stability of income,
- concentration (is it all from one position or many?),
- volatility and drawdowns,
and derives risk limits for that revenue account.

The output is:

a maximum advance size (for one-offs),
a maximum credit line limit (for revolving facilities),
plus guardrails on:
- revenue share %,
- maximum duration,
- and how quickly facilities must amortise.

These limits are updated over time as more data arrives.

4. Step three: a project picks a product

Once the revenue account exists and limits are set, a project can choose:

A) One-off revenue advance

“Sell X% of the next N days / weeks of revenues for cash now.”

This is good for:

shipping a release,
listings, campaigns, short bursts of hiring,
“bridge the next few weeks” type use-cases.

B) Revenue-backed credit line

“Get a revolving limit sized by your revenues, and repay from income as you draw.”

This is good for:

ongoing working capital,
creator “lifestyle lines” backed by predictable earnings,
DAOs and apps that want reusable borrowing capacity.

The UI stays in business language:

“Advance: 30% of the next 6 weeks for $X today.”
“Credit line: up to $Y, repaid from Z% of monthly revenues.”

5. Step four: what happens onchain when you open a position

Under the hood, attn does three things when a position is opened:

Locks in a share of your future revenues for a fixed period and/or until a target amount is repaid.
Mints claim tokens (PT and YT) that represent:
- the “principal” leg of the position,
- the “yield / cashflow” leg between now and maturity.
Matches you with capital:
- attnUSD vault (or other LP capital) pays you out in stablecoins,
- in exchange for those cashflow claims on your revenue.

You only see:

the cash in your wallet or treasury,
the open “advance” or “credit line” in your dashboard,
the share of revenues that is now committed to repayment.

LPs only see:

their attnUSD balance,
the current share price / yield,
high-level portfolio metrics.

The PT/YT layer exists so that products of different shapes can be standardised and risk-managed in one system.

(Details on PT/YT live in PT, YT, and attnUSD – Technical Design.)

6. Step five: how repayment works

Every time new revenue hits the revenue account while a position is open:

The attn logic checks:
- which product positions are active,
- their agreed revenue share and repayment priority,
- how much each one still needs to be repaid.
It splits incoming revenues accordingly:
- first into repayment buckets for open product positions,
- then any leftover stays in the project’s free balance (which can earn base yield).
It updates onchain state:
- outstanding principal per position,
- how much revenue has been collected,
- whether a position is fully repaid, in good standing, or in default.

For a one-off advance:

once the target repayment amount has been collected,
that position is automatically marked as complete,
the revenue share drops back to 0%,
and all future revenues go back to the project (unless another position is active).

For a credit line:

revenue shares are applied to whatever is currently drawn,
as you repay and draw again, the same rules apply,
limits can adjust over time as performance improves or deteriorates.

7. Step six: what LPs see via attnUSD

LPs deposit stablecoins into an attnUSD vault.

In exchange, they receive attnUSD, a USD-denominated share token whose value is backed by:

a stablecoin basket (USDC, USDT, USDe, USDC+),
plus a portfolio of revenue-backed advances and credit lines.

Over time:

as positions pay in, default, and recover,
the vault’s net asset value (NAV) moves,
and the attnUSD share price tracks that NAV.

Yield comes from:

interest and fees on revenue from opened positions,
sometimes the underlying base yield on pledged assets,
minus losses, operating costs, and reserves.

LPs do not have to understand each individual position. They mainly care about:

what backs attnUSD,
performance and risk metrics,
diversification.

(Details live in For Liquidity Providers and the LP Guide.)

8. Failure modes and protections (high-level)

If a project underperforms:

their revenues may be lower than expected,
repayment may take longer or may not reach the target amount by maturity.

The protocol’s response includes:

position-level controls:
- conservative initial limits (LTV, term, revenue share),
- automatic stoppage of new borrowing when performance breaks thresholds,
- the ability to restructure or extend positions on-chain if both sides agree.
portfolio-level controls:
- concentration limits per project, sector, and revenue type,
- buffers and reserves at the attnUSD vault level,
- diversified exposure across many independent revenue streams.

Losses from bad positions:

are first absorbed by any reserves,
then by the attnUSD vault NAV,
and therefore ultimately by attnUSD holders.

attnUSD is explicitly not a guarantee of 1:1 return of principal; it is a tokenised exposure to revenue-backed credit risk.

9. Implementation notes

Two concrete implementation choices matter under the hood:

Revenue account infra
- Revenue accounts are implemented as Squads Safe multisig vaults on Solana.
- This gives jointly governed custody and routing for protocol and creator revenues without taking over a project’s entire treasury.
PT/YT and yield infra
- PT/YT positions are represented via Exponent Finance’s Standardised Yield (SY) contracts on Solana.
- SY is used to represent revenue-bearing positions and strip them into PT and YT in a standard way that other protocols can integrate with.

10. Mapping back to the user-facing story

From a project’s perspective, everything above reduces to:

“This is my revenue account.”
“These are my advances and credit line backed by that revenue.”
“This is my available balance, some of which can earn yield while idle.”

From an LP’s perspective, it reduces to:

“I deposit stables and receive attnUSD.”
“attnUSD gives me diversified exposure to revenue-backed products instead of just token price.”
“My return is the vault’s performance, marked transparently on-chain.”

From attn’s perspective, PT/YT and vault mechanics are the glue that makes these experiences consistent and auditable across many different revenue sources and position shapes.