This guide walks you through everything you need to go from a fresh Solana wallet to your first Saturn vault deposit and through a complete weekly epoch. By the end you will have deposited SOL, watched the vault write and settle a covered call, and withdrawn your principal plus any yield collected. No options knowledge required — the vault handles the mechanics automatically.
1. Before you start
Saturn runs on the Solana blockchain, so you need two things before you can interact with the vault: a Solana-compatible browser wallet and some SOL to deposit. Saturn currently supports Phantom and Solflare — install one of those browser extensions or mobile apps and create a new wallet if you do not already have one. Both wallets have their own in-app setup guides; follow those to generate a seed phrase and secure it offline before proceeding. Once your wallet is set up, you will need SOL in it. You can purchase SOL on major exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance, or Kraken, then withdraw it directly to your Solana wallet address. Keep a small reserve — around 0.05 SOL — for transaction fees; the rest can go into the vault.
2. Connect your wallet
Visit the Saturn app and click the Connect Wallet button in the top-right corner. A picker will appear showing Phantom and Solflare — select whichever wallet you installed. Your wallet extension will open and ask you to approve the connection; this only grants Saturn permission to read your public address, not to move funds. No signature is required for browsing the app — you will only sign transactions when you take an explicit action like depositing or withdrawing. Reconnecting the same wallet on a future visit happens automatically as long as you stay signed in to your wallet extension.
3. Choose a vault
The vault list page shows all active Saturn vaults. Each row displays the vault name, the underlying asset (currently SOL), the current Total Value Locked (TVL), the deposit cap, an APY figure, and the vault's current status. The APY shown is either realized — based on settled epochs — or a target range when the vault is new and has not settled enough cycles to compute a reliable historical figure. The status indicator tells you where the vault is in its weekly cycle: Auction means options are being sold right now, Active means the options are live and the vault is earning premium, and Open means the vault is between epochs and processing deposits and withdrawals. For your first deposit, any status is fine — the Pending Queue system ensures your SOL is handled correctly regardless of when you arrive in the cycle. Click a vault row to open its detail page where you can read the vault parameters and interact with the deposit widget.
4. Make your first deposit
On the vault detail page, find the deposit and withdraw widget on the right side of the screen (or below the vault header on mobile). Enter the amount of SOL you want to deposit and click Deposit. Your wallet will prompt you to approve a transaction — this is an on-chain action that moves your SOL into the vault, so a small network fee (typically under 0.001 SOL) is charged. If you deposit while the vault is in its Open phase, your SOL is activated immediately and starts earning premium in the next epoch. If you deposit during the Auction or Active phase — when options are already in flight — your deposit enters the Pending Queue instead. Your SOL is held safely in a dedicated pending account and activated automatically at the next epoch boundary, once the current options cycle completes. You will see a pending banner in your position panel confirming the deposit is queued; no action is needed on your part. The activation happens automatically at the start of the next epoch, after which your SOL is fully in the vault and earning yield.
5. What happens during an epoch
Each Saturn epoch is approximately one week long and moves through four phases automatically. The cycle begins when the keeper (the off-chain automation service) calls write_options, transitioning the vault into the Auction phase. During this phase, the vault runs a Dutch auction where a market-making bot bids on the covered call options the vault writes. The premium collected in the auction is the source of your yield — it flows directly into the vault treasury and is reflected in the rising share price you see on the dashboard. Once the auction fills, the vault enters the Active phase: the options are live and the vault is simply waiting for the epoch to expire. Nothing requires your attention during Active. At epoch end, the keeper calls settle_epoch, which reads the Pyth SOL/USD price oracle to determine the settlement price. If SOL finished below the strike price (out of the money), the vault keeps all the premium and no SOL is paid out to option buyers — this is the most common outcome and the net premium (after protocol management and performance fees) is reflected in the rising share price. If SOL finished above the strike (in the money), the vault pays the difference to option buyers, which reduces the vault's total SOL and caps your upside for that epoch. After settlement the vault briefly enters the Open phase, during which pending deposits are activated and withdrawal requests are processed before the next auction begins.
6. Withdraw
To get your SOL back, open the vault detail page and switch the widget to the Withdraw tab. Enter the amount you want to withdraw and submit the request. This burns the corresponding share tokens and records a withdrawal request on-chain, but the SOL is not returned to your wallet immediately. Saturn uses a one-epoch withdrawal delay: your SOL is released at the end of the current epoch, once options have settled and the vault has moved back into its Open phase. The delay exists because the vault needs to maintain full collateral for active options — it cannot release SOL while a live covered call is outstanding. While your withdrawal is pending you will see a banner in the position panel showing how many epochs remain. You can cancel the withdrawal at any time before the epoch closes — cancelling re-mints your shares and removes the request. Once the epoch ends, the withdrawal is processed automatically by the keeper in batches; if the keeper misses your request for any reason you can also process it yourself directly from the dApp, which costs only a small network fee. The SOL will arrive in your wallet shortly after processing.
7. Tracking your position
The position card on the vault detail page shows a breakdown of your activity in that vault. Cumulative deposited is the running total of all SOL you have sent to the vault across all deposits. Active value is the current SOL equivalent of the shares you hold — this rises as premium accrues into the vault and falls if an in-the-money settlement reduces the vault's total SOL. Pending shows any SOL sitting in the queue waiting to activate at the next epoch boundary. Withdrawn is the cumulative SOL you have already taken back to your wallet. The P&L figure is calculated as active value plus pending plus withdrawn, minus your cumulative principal — positive numbers mean you are ahead. You hold shares rather than raw SOL inside the vault; shares are the vault's LP token and their exchange rate against SOL changes as premium flows in or payouts flow out. Your dashboard always shows both the share count and its current SOL equivalent so you always know exactly where you stand.
8. Getting help
Reach out on Twitter at @saturnprotocol_. A Discord channel is coming soon. Bug reports and questions are welcome via Twitter DM.