Royco is a next-generation decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol that’s redefining how on-chain incentives are created, priced, and distributed. Built around a novel model called the Incentivized Action Market (IAM), Royco is quickly gaining traction as a smarter alternative to airdrops and liquidity mining — helping protocols and users find fairer, more transparent ways to interact. With over $3 billion in total value locked (TVL) and high-profile partnerships with Berachain and Sonic, Royco is already reshaping the DeFi landscape.

Key Takeaways

✅ Royco is a protocol for pricing and distributing on-chain incentives through Incentivized Action Markets (IAMs). IAMs offer a transparent, dynamic, and negotiable alternative to traditional yield farming.

✅ It enables protocols to reward users for performing specific DeFi actions, like staking or lending.

✅ Royco supports cross-chain deposits, recipe automation, and yield boosting via smart contracts.

✅ Real-world adoption includes Berachain’s “Boyco” and Sonic’s $200M incentive program.

What is Royco and Why It Matters

Royco is a permissionless, smart contract-powered protocol that enables the creation of Incentivized Action Markets (IAMs), where Incentive Providers (IPs) can offer rewards for specific on-chain actions, such as depositing into a vault or providing liquidity. Action Providers (APs) can respond to these offers, and through a series of offers and counter-offers, both parties can agree upon an incentive amount for which the AP will complete the transaction. This dynamic pricing mechanism addresses a significant challenge in DeFi: protocols often expend capital inefficiently to attract users, while users lack a clear method to assess the value of their participation. Royco introduces a marketplace for intent and action, fostering transparent, negotiable incentives based on actual supply and demand, thereby enhancing capital efficiency within the ecosystem.

How Does Royco Work? (IAMs and Recipes)

At the heart of Royco are Incentivized Action Markets (IAMs)—programmable smart contract markets where:​

• Incentive Providers (IPs) offer rewards for specific on-chain actions.
• Action Providers (APs) can propose the incentives they require to perform these actions, allowing IPs to respond accordingly.

Once both parties agree on the terms, the action is executed atomically via a smart contract, and the incentive is distributed.​

IAMs are compatible with:​

• ERC-4626 vault actions (e.g., deposits and withdrawals related to staking and lending activities).​
• Royco Recipes that enable custom bundles of actions using the Weiroll scripting language.

All of this is non-custodial, permissionless, and immutable—enhancing safety and composability within the broader DeFi ecosystem. Whether you’re a protocol distributing governance tokens or a user seeking optimal yields, IAMs facilitate a marketplace for transparent and negotiable incentives based on real supply and demand.

Royco in the Wild: Use Cases with Berachain, Sonic, and Boyco

Royco’s model isn’t just theoretical—it’s live and thriving.​

Boyco & Berachain

Berachain, a highly anticipated Layer 1 blockchain, leveraged Royco’s IAMs to bootstrap its ecosystem through Boyco, a pre-launch liquidity platform built on the Royco Protocol. Boyco enabled decentralized applications (dApps) to create pre-launch liquidity markets, allowing users to deposit assets before the mainnet launch and earn potential rewards.

• Depositing assets into dedicated pools, which were locked until Berachain’s mainnet launch. Depositors were rewarded with tokens or points from Berachain or participating dApps. ​
• Engaging in various markets that allowed for single-sided deposits (e.g., AVAX, USDC) or dual-sided liquidity provision (e.g., BERA/USDC), attracting liquidity providers through early participation incentives.
• Utilizing cross-chain execution facilitated by integrating LayerZero and Stargate, enabling quick and secure transfer of assets like USDC, USDT, DAI, wETH, and wBTC to Berachain, enhancing the platform’s liquidity. 

This initiative attracted over $2.2 billion in pre-deposits, demonstrating substantial validation of Royco’s approach and highlighting the community’s strong interest in Berachain’s ecosystem. ​By implementing IAMs through Boyco, Berachain effectively addressed the ‘cold start’ problem, ensuring that dApps had sufficient liquidity from day one, thereby positioning the ecosystem for long-term success.

Sonic’s $200M Ecosystem Program

Sonic has launched a $200 million ecosystem initiative, with Season 1 focusing on incentivizing user engagement and protocol development. In collaboration with Royco, this program enables users to:​

• Compare rewards across various applications and markets within the Sonic ecosystem.​
• Estimate their projected share of $S tokens based on their participation.​
• Track additional rewards such as Sonic Gems and Activity Points earned through specific actions.​
• Set conditions for desired incentives, effectively placing limit orders to negotiate higher yields on their contributions.​

This integration fosters a more equitable and engaging incentive experience, transforming DeFi users from passive recipients into active participants in price discovery.

Why IAMs Beat Traditional DeFi Incentives

Traditional DeFi incentives — like airdrops, liquidity mining, or points farming — come with persistent flaws:

• No price discovery: Protocols often guess how much to pay users, with little to no feedback from the market.
• Lack of transparency: Users typically can’t see what others are earning or influence their rewards.
• Capital inefficiency: Incentives are frequently misallocated, often going to whales or bots, rather than engaged participants.

Royco’s Incentivized Action Markets (IAMs) address these challenges by introducing:

• Real-time pricing for user actions based on live market dynamics.
• User-set incentive requests, allowing participants to post offers that reflect the value they expect — similar to placing a limit order.
• Atomic execution, ensuring rewards are only paid when the on-chain action is successfully completed.

The result? Every yield opportunity becomes a transparent, market-driven process — bringing efficiency, fairness, and innovation to DeFi incentives.

How to Earn on Royco

Earning with Royco is simple — and powerful.

As a user, you can:

1. Browse active IAMs: see which protocols are offering what incentives.
2. Execute eligible actions: like lending USDC, staking LP tokens, or providing liquidity.
3. Get rewarded: with tokens, points, or app-specific bonuses.

Incentives are paid automatically and can include:

• Protocol-native tokens (like $BERA or $S).
• Gems or Points for future airdrops.
• Royco Bonus Gems (exclusive boosts for Royco users).

Because IAMs are programmable, Royco can even bundle multiple steps (via Recipes) into a single transaction — helping users earn across layers of DeFi with less hassle.

Risks and Rewards of Using Royco

Ethena offers unique opportunities for DeFi users, but like any financial product, it comes with both rewards and risks.

✅ Rewards:

• Market-driven incentives: IAMs enable users to negotiate rewards for on-chain actions, making it easier to get fairly compensated for participating in DeFi.
• Transparency and flexibility: Both protocols and users benefit from open pricing and dynamic offers, reducing the guesswork of traditional yield farming.
• Real adoption: Royco has already been successfully deployed in major ecosystems like Berachain (Boyco) and Sonic, showing early traction and real use cases.
• Composable automation: With Recipes, users can bundle actions across protocols, streamlining multi-step strategies in a single transaction.

⚠️ Risks:

• Smart contract risk: As with any DeFi protocol, users are exposed to potential vulnerabilities in smart contracts, especially when interacting with newer or less-audited apps.
• Volatility in incentives: Because pricing is market-driven, available rewards may fluctuate based on demand, competition, or changing protocol strategies.
• Complexity for new users: IAMs introduce new concepts like limit offers for rewards, which may be unfamiliar to DeFi beginners.
• Cross-chain risks: Some deployments rely on third-party bridges like LayerZero and Stargate, which come with their own risk profiles.

As always, users should assess the risks relative to their own goals and do their own research before interacting with new protocols.

Conclusion

Royco is redefining how value is coordinated and distributed in decentralized finance. By replacing inefficient incentive programs with transparent, negotiable, and market-based rewards, Royco offers a new primitive for protocol growth and user participation. From powering $2B+ in Berachain deposits to helping Sonic launch a $200M reward program, Royco is already proving that its Incentivized Action Market is the next evolution of DeFi infrastructure.

Whether you’re a builder looking to launch a new protocol or a DeFi user seeking better yields, Royco is your gateway to smarter liquidity, fairer rewards, and scalable coordination.

Note: Royco is not yet available on Return Pro, but we’re closely tracking its development. As part of our mission to surface forward-thinking DeFi protocols, we’ll continue to evaluate emerging opportunities like Royco for future integration.