User guide

A practical guide for buying, boarding, or locking ARK.

This page is for users who do not want contract jargon first. It explains what each path does, what your wallet is asking you to approve, and how to think about slippage and minimum received.

Start Here

You need a wallet, enough ETH for gas, and the official Ark interface. The current public mainnet reference deployment uses TEST, so the app and contract page may show TEST while the product language talks about ARK.

Best habit: before doing anything meaningful, compare the token address in your wallet prompt with the address on the contracts page.

Most actions have two kinds of wallet prompts. An approval lets a contract spend a token for the action you selected. The action transaction actually trades, boards, locks, exits, claims, or unlocks.

Choose The Path That Fits You

Trade if you want flexibility

Trading is for users who want liquid exposure. You can buy, sell, transfer, board, or lock later. You do not earn protocol rewards just by holding liquid tokens.

Board if you want active participation

Boarding turns liquid tokens into a reward-earning position. It is still exitable, but exiting early may pay a fee that decays over time.

Lock if you want maximum commitment

Locking is for users who accept a fixed waiting period. Locks can earn the locked reward lane and ETH-accounted rewards, but they cannot be unlocked early.

Claim or compound if you already have positions

Claim sends pending rewards to your wallet. Compound rolls pending token rewards back into participation where the contract allows it.

How Trading Works

A buy swaps ETH or WETH for ARK through the official pool. A sell swaps ARK back toward ETH. The app shows a quote, a minimum received amount, and the expected effect before you sign.

Term	Meaning
Quote	The current estimate for what the trade should return.
Minimum received	The least you are willing to accept after price movement, fees, and rounding.
Price impact	How much your trade moves against the pool's current price.
Gas	The ETH paid to Ethereum validators for processing the transaction.

How Boarding Works

Boarding converts liquid ARK into a boarded position. You receive receipt tokens and a position that the protocol can track for rewards. Boarded positions can claim, compound, or exit.

Exit fee: boarded positions can have an exit fee at first. The fee decays over the configured period. If you want to avoid it, wait until the app shows the fee has reached zero.

The exit amount normally focuses on principal. Pending rewards are shown separately so you can see what is your boarded balance and what is claimable reward.

How Locking Works

Locking is the strongest user commitment. You deposit ARK for a fixed period. The lock can earn token rewards and WETH-accounted fee rewards, which normally pay as ETH when claimed or unlocked.

Before maturity

You can claim rewards. You may be able to compound token rewards into a new lock. You cannot unlock the principal early.

After maturity

You unlock. Unlocking returns the locked principal and settles remaining rewards in the same transaction.

Slippage In Plain English

Slippage is the difference between the price you see and the price your transaction can actually execute at. On Ethereum, your transaction waits in the mempool before it lands in a block. During that wait, price and pool balances can move.

If slippage is too low

Your transaction is more likely to fail if the price moves even a little. You keep your tokens, but you may still spend gas.

If slippage is too high

Your transaction is more likely to execute, but you give the market more room to fill you at a worse price.

The number to read carefully is minimum received. If that number is acceptable to you, the slippage setting is doing its job. If it is not acceptable, do not sign.

Safety Checklist

Before signing	Why it matters
Check the site URL	Use the official app and docs. Fake frontends can ask for dangerous approvals.
Check the contract address	Make sure the token or contract matches the current contracts page.
Read minimum received	This is the practical trade protection number, not just the quoted output.
Read the action label	Buy, sell, board, lock, claim, exit, and unlock do different things.
Understand lock maturity	A lock is not a short-term trade. Principal comes back only after maturity.