§1 · The protocol

What a cohort is

A token backed by a fixed basket of tokenized shares, held in a vault that only the program's own rules can open.

A cohort is a Solana token backed by a fixed basket of tokenized shares. The shares sit in vaults owned by a program account called a pod. Each pod has one recipe, set when it is created, and one token: cCORE for the Core pod, cMAG7 for the Magnificent Seven, and so on.

You get cohorts by wrapping: deposit every component of the basket in proportion and the pod mints cohorts to you. You get the shares back by unwrapping: return cohorts and the pod pays out every component in proportion. Nothing in between is priced, staked, lent or voted on. The vault either holds the shares or it doesn't.

Exhibit AWrapping moves the components into the pod's vaults and mints cohorts; unwrapping burns cohorts and pays the components back. Both directions are in kind.

What holding one means§

You hold a claim on the basket, through the program. One cohort is redeemable for its pro-rata share of every vault, minus the unwrap fee, at any time. Nobody at Cohort can stop an unwrap: the instruction doesn't read the protocol's configuration at all.
The recipe can't change. Components, recipe units and fees are fixed by create_pod. The program has no instruction that edits them. The pod's creator can only lower its own share of fees.
Fees raise the backing. Wrap and unwrap fees are paid in cohorts. When anyone runs distribute_fees, most of them are burned, so the same vaults back fewer cohorts. See §3 Fees and the burn.
The issuers keep their powers. The tokenized stocks inside a pod (xStocks such as SPYx and NVDAx) can be frozen, paused or seized by their issuers. A pod can't remove those powers; it can only limit the damage to the pod affected and keep the rest of your basket redeemable. See §5 Issuer powers and risk.

What it is not§

There is no oracle in the program, no staking, no emissions and no governance token. The price of a cohort on a DEX comes from arbitrage: when the pool drifts above or below the basket's value, anyone can wrap or unwrap against it and keep the difference. §2 How it works explains why that is enough.

A cohort carries no shareholder rights. Neither do the xStocks inside it: they are claims on their issuers, not shares registered to you.

Where to read next§

§2 How it works for the share math, rounding and the arbitrage that keeps the price honest.
§4 The pods for what each launch pod holds and why.
§7 Program reference and §8 The TypeScript SDK if you are building on the program.
§9 Devnet quickstart to try a wrap and an unwrap without spending anything.