What is MaaS?

Market Maker as a Service (MaaS) is a comprehensive set of tools designed to enhance on-chain liquidity provision for protocol owners. MaaS shares similarities with Aperture’s intentional liquidity management solution, but is tailored specifically to meet the needs of on-chain market makers. The platform has advanced enterprise-grade capabilities and is backed by a strong customer support service level agreement (SLA). MaaS offers a granular approach to liquidity management, providing protocol owners with advanced tools to optimize their market making strategies.

MaaS provides sophisticated on-chain inventory management, efficient market maker/underwriter position rebalancing, and advanced algorithmic trading tools to optimize liquidity provision and market making strategies.

Users of MaaS benefit from extraordinary flexibility, enabling precise granularity of control and customizable levels of practice management, ranging from highly engaged to largely automated approaches.

Who is MaaS for?

MaaS is designed primarily for protocol owners at different stages of development, from pre-token launch to mature projects post-token launch. This versatile platform can meet the evolving needs of protocols at different stages of growth and market presence.

Regardless of the development stage, MaaS provides protocol owners with:

  • Customizable liquidity provision strategies

  • Real-time market analysis and response mechanism

  • Risk management tools to cope with turbulent market conditions

  • A scalable solution that grows with your experimental needs

By providing tailor-made solutions for different stages of protocol development, MaaS becomes a valuable asset for projects seeking to establish and maintain a strong market position throughout their lifecycle.

What is an on-chain market maker?

For protocols and company owners considering on-chain market making, pooled liquidity market makers offer a powerful tool to improve capital efficiency and market depth. Using protocols such as Uniswap V3 as an example, you can concentrate liquidity provision within specific price ranges where trading activity is most likely to occur.

By leveraging concentrated liquidity, users are more likely to earn higher returns on capital than with traditional automated market maker (AMM) models. However, this model requires more active management. You need to regularly monitor market conditions and rebalance your positions to ensure your liquidity remains within the optimal price range. While this can improve performance, it also requires more sophisticated risk management strategies to mitigate potential impermanent loss.

Implementing centralized liquidity market making can significantly improve your protocol's trading efficiency, attract more users, and potentially increase fee revenue.

How MaaS works

Mechanism Overview

Under MaaS, protocol owners deposit project tokens and ether or stablecoins into a vault hosted by Aperture. Assets can only be withdrawn by protocol owners. Aperture's only role is to manage liquidity and inventory as directed by the protocol. Assets are then divided into two parts: inventory and active liquidity.

MaaS will be responsible for dynamically maintaining a certain level of liquidity in the market based on the preferences of the protocol owners. Active liquidity is gradually rebalanced to achieve deep liquidity around the current pool price with a 50-50 (ETH/stablecoin - project token) ratio.

Rebalancing Maker and Taker Positions

Aperture MaaS provides enterprise-grade flexibility to protocol owners by supporting maker and taker rebalancing strategies.

Market maker rebalancing is a method of acquiring tokens required for rebalancing without occupying existing liquidity. Instead, tokens are passively converted by providing liquidity in an automated market maker (AMM). This method allows for efficient rebalancing without incurring invisible losses.

When market conditions require quick action, users can initiate market maker rebalancing by leveraging existing liquidity in on-chain venues. This approach is primarily useful in time-critical situations where achieving impermanent loss is acceptable.

Algorithmic Trading Tools

Algorithmic trading tools are part of the MaaS tool suite and help protocol owners better manage their inventory. Users can use TWAP (price-weighted average price) or VWAP (volume-weighted average price) features to acquire or liquidate assets through market makers or underwriters in the AMM.