Is this a Ponzi?

No, and the distinguishing test is where your money goes. There is no pool, no token and nothing lent onward. Your $10,000 goes into one wallet, funding one named counterparty for one fixed term, and comes back out of that same wallet. Your 6% is one trader's fee, owed by that trader and taken out of that same wallet when the Arlo settles, not out of the next person's deposit. Nobody's return depends on anybody joining after them, which is the only property that actually matters here.

Then why can the Backer receive 6%?

Because that is what the other seat is willing to pay for $15,000 to trade for up to thirty days, with no challenge to pass, no profit split and no way to be liquidated into a debt. Every funded-trader programme charges them for a test they can fail and then takes a fifth to a half of everything they make afterwards. Arlo charges once and takes nothing after. The $600 is what that costs them. It is a price, not a yield.

What is your business model?

$150 per Arlo, 1% of the size, out of the same 5% fee. Nothing is taken at the start: the fee is recovered at settlement, out of whatever the wallet holds at the end, and only after the Backer has been paid in full. It is also the first money lost if anything goes wrong, our cut is spent before the Backer's bonus and long before their capital, so an Arlo that ends badly for a Backer pays us nothing at all. We make money on volume of clean cycles and on nothing else.

Can I lose more than my contribution?

No, on either seat. A Trader's maximum loss is their $5,000 and a Backer's is their $10,000. There is no margin call, no top-up obligation and no debt in either direction, a Trader who wipes the wallet owes nothing at settlement, and there is no mechanism anywhere that could create a claim against them.

What is the realistic bad outcome, not the worst one?

For a Backer: the Trader loses badly, the halt fires at $11,000, and you are paid your full $10,600 weeks early. That is what almost every bad Arlo looks like. The next step down is a gap that costs you part of your bonus and none of your capital. Reaching capital needs the fills to land a thousand dollars past the stops in total, on a book where every position closed at once.

Is the 6% guaranteed?

No. It is contingent on the wallet covering your capital at settlement. It is not interest, not a yield and not a promise by anybody; there is nobody in the system with the power to make it one.

Can I get my money out early?

Anything sitting in your account is yours to withdraw at any moment; it is not committed to anything. For money already in an Arlo: before you match, yes, instantly and at any time. After you match: a Trader can settle whenever they like, and a Backer cannot exit at all until the Arlo ends, though once the term is up they can call settlement themselves. That asymmetry is deliberate, a Backer able to call settlement could force-close a winning Trader and confiscate the term they paid for.

What if the Trader disappears?

Then you end it yourself. Settlement after Day 30 is gated on the clock, not on who is asking, so once the term is up anyone can call it and the waterfall runs exactly as it would have: your capital and bonus leave the wallet before the Trader gets anything. The only period in which the Trader alone can end an Arlo is before Day 30, and ending it early pays you the same amount sooner rather than less.

Who holds my money?

You do, in both places it can be. Money waiting between Arlos sits in your own account, which can only send it to an Arlo you own or back to the wallet you funded it from; there is no third destination, and no version of it we can reach. Money inside a live Arlo sits in a wallet you mint, a Safe you own, with the Arlo rules installed in the same transaction, so it can never exist unprotected, not even for a single block. Arlo never takes custody of anything at any point.

What is the account for, and do I have to use it?

It is where your money waits between Arlos, and yes, a seat is always funded from it. That is the trade: one top-up instead of a transfer every time, and a place for settlements to land. It is not a trading wallet, it is never a party to an Arlo, and it never holds capital that is in flight. Withdraw the balance to your own wallet whenever you like; nothing has to sit in it.

Why does my Arlo Wallet read $0 after I match?

Because your capital moved into the Trader's wallet, which is the entire mechanism. Your money is what they trade. Seeing $0 there means it is working, and your claim on that wallet comes ahead of theirs.

Do I choose my counterparty?

No, and neither do they. Both queues are first come, first served. Every protection is identical whoever you are paired with, so there is nothing to screen for, no score to game and no curation to be captured. Counterparties are fungible by design.

Can I end up on both sides of my own Arlo?

Not by accident. If the next slot in the queue belongs to you, it is passed over and you are matched with the next person who is not you, just for that arrival, so nobody else loses their place. Without it, holding both seats with auto-join on would eventually pair your own two slots together and you would pay our fee to trade with yourself. It guards against the accident and nothing more: capital is still the only gate, and anyone funding two seats from two addresses can take both sides on purpose.

Why 1:2 and not an even split?

The ratio is where the 6% comes from. The Backer's capital is two thirds of the wallet and their bonus is 4% of the size, so the return is 4% ÷ 66.7% = 6%. It is a mechanical consequence of the split, not a rate anybody chose or can tune without changing the split.

What is auto-join, and is it on by default?

It is off until you switch it on. When it is on, your account stands a funded seat on your chosen side for each seat you explicitly enrol, and settled capital waits for your explicit re-arm. It exists because a queue with somebody standing in it matches instantly: an auto-enrolled account is a real funded slot waiting, so whoever arrives on the other side is matched on arrival rather than waiting for a person to be awake. Two things it deliberately does not do: it never reaches outside the account, and your wallet is never pulled from. There is no concurrency ceiling beyond the balance you leave available.

How many Arlos can I run at once?

As many as you can fund, on either seat, in any combination. There is no identity check, no reputation ladder and no separate concurrency cap: your available balance is the limit. Auto-enrolment takes one seat per call and settled capital does not re-enter the queue automatically. What you leave in the account and what you re-arm is the whole of the decision.

What if Arlo the company disappears?

Every live Arlo carries on and settles exactly as specified. The contracts have no owner, no pause and no upgrade path, so there is nothing for us to switch off and nothing anyone could switch off by acquiring, suing or seizing us. The same fact is the risk disclosure: we could not help you either, and neither could anyone else.

What if the venue or Arbitrum halts, or the stablecoin depegs?

It reaches the wallet, and nothing in Arlo prevents it. An Arlo sits on top of three systems it does not control, and that dependency is a real, unhedged risk on both seats.

What if there is a bug?

It is permanent as well as public. There is no pause, no upgrade and no admin key to stop an exploit mid-flight. That is the same property that makes every other guarantee here credible, and there is no version of this design where you get one without the other.

Nobody can make me whole?

Nobody. There is no insurance fund, no discretion and no support desk that can reverse anything. The absence of power is what stops us or anyone else taking your money, and it is exactly the same absence that means nobody can give it back.

How long until I am matched?

We do not know, and anybody who gives you a number is guessing. Both queues are first come, first served, and a match happens the instant somebody funds the opposite seat; it can be the same minute or it can be days. We are early, and an empty queue is the ordinary state of a young two-sided market. What we can tell you is what it costs you to wait: nothing. Your money sits in your Arlo account; it is not locked; it earns nothing; and you can take it back in one transaction at any point before you match.

Is there a house account taking the other side?

No, and no bot either. Nobody at Arlo funds the opposite seat to make a market, so a match means another person actually wanted that seat at that size. That is slower than a market maker would be, and it is the only version of this that is honest about who your counterparty is: if the queue is empty, it is empty, and we would rather show you that than fill it ourselves.

Can I start with less than $10,000?

Not yet. There is one Arlo size: $15,000, funded $5,000 by the Trader and $10,000 by the Backer, and it is deliberate rather than a limitation we have not got to. Every size splits the queue into another pair of lines to fill, and a queue nobody is in is a product that does not work. One size means one pair of queues and the shortest possible wait for everybody. Smaller sizes come when there are enough people to fill them. If you have more, there is no cap: run as many Arlos as you can fund, on either seat.

Is there any KYC?

None. No email, no name, no identity check and no application to be approved. Nothing about you is collected at any point in either flow.

How is this taxed?

We do not know and we cannot tell you. Nothing on this site is tax, legal or investment advice, and Arlo does not report anything to anybody. Ask somebody qualified in your jurisdiction.

What do I need to start?

An Arbitrum wallet, and either $5,000 to take the Trader seat or $10,000 to take the Backer seat. You put that into your account first and take the seat from there. That is the entire list.