Whistles
Shepherds steer a sheepdog with whistles. In Sheepdog, a whistle (a trigger) tells a bucket of ETH or tokens when to spend, and a stay sets its limits.
The core idea
Every run splits new ETH or tokens into buckets, such as holder rewards, buy and burn, or a floor fund.
The whistle is the bucket’s rule for when to spend. A bucket with no whistle spends on every run.
When the whistle blows, the Sheepdog keeper spends the bucket, inside the stays the owner set and the limits the contract enforces.
Who listens? The Sheepdog keeper checks every whistle around the clock and records the token’s price for the floor and dip whistles. It only runs vaults whose owner turned on automatic mode. Owners can also spend any bucket by hand.
Steady
These whistles keep money moving. Use them when holders should see something from every run.
The bucket spends each time the vault runs.
Example: holders get their share from every run.
A bucket with no whistle uses this one, and holder-reward buckets always do. How often it blows depends on the vault’s pace, one of the stays below.
The vault waits until enough ETH or tokens have arrived, so rounds are worth claiming.
Example: run only after 0.5 ETH, or 1M tokens, has arrived.
Unassigned funds and funds returned from holder rounds count toward the amount. Whistles that spend ETH already saved in a bucket, such as the floor whistle, don’t wait for it.
Patient
These buckets fill on every run and wait. When the market reaches the level the owner picked, ETH buckets buy the token and token buckets burn.
Spends when the token’s market cap drops to your level.
Example: buy when the market cap is $500k or lower.
Market cap is the price in USD times the supply outside the dead address. The 30-minute average stops a single trade from blowing the whistle. If price data is missing or stale, the whistle stays quiet.
Spends when the price falls a set percentage below its recent high.
Example: buy when the price is 20% below its 7-day high.
The high is the highest price Sheepdog recorded for the bucket’s pool in the window. The whistle compares it with that pool’s current price. If price data is missing, the whistle stays quiet.
Stays
A shepherd uses a stay to stop the dog. In Sheepdog, stays set the limits on every whistle, and the contract enforces some of them itself.
Never buy above a market cap you set.
Example: never buy above $2M.
The contract checks the ceiling before every swap, using the Chainlink ETH/USD price and the network status feed. If either is stale or down, the buy is refused.
Choose how much a whistle may spend each time it blows.
Example: spend at most 0.2 ETH per run and let the rest wait.
With a cap, a large bucket spends in steps over several runs, which keeps each buy smaller.
Set how often the vault may run and how much the keeper may move.
Example: run at most once an hour, with up to 1 ETH per run.
The keeper only runs vaults with an interval of at least 10 minutes and a cap per run. Its spending allowance refills over the interval, so even a stolen keeper key can’t move more than the cap.
Every buy sets a minimum number of tokens to receive.
Example: accept at most 3% less than the quote, the default.
Sheepdog quotes the pool just before each buy and the contract enforces the minimum. Buys of tokens other than the project token are skipped when the price impact is above 10%.
Coming next
These pair a weekly whistle with new holder rules. They use the same vaults and buckets, so nobody has to move funds.
Pay the largest holders of the token.
Choose how many wallets count, or a minimum balance. This whistle is planned and not available yet.
Pay the wallet with the largest buy of the period.
The reward comes from the holder bucket of that round. This whistle is planned and not available yet.
For the team and the community
Open a vault, fund it with ETH,
and give every bucket its whistle.
A whistle is a rule. It does not guarantee a price.
WAITING FOR THE WHISTLE.
