What can go wrong, before any of it does.
We surface the risk model in onboarding, in the dashboard, and on this page. Read it. Print it. Acknowledge it before depositing — we make you do that anyway. Capital is at risk; estimated rates are variable and not guaranteed.
How we currently weigh the risk model.
The matrix shows where each risk category sits on Northvault's internal impact / likelihood grid. This is descriptive, not predictive — categories shift as the book and the market move. The full disclosure for each category is below.
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- Impermanent loss
- MM counterparty
- Depeg
- Liquidity stress
- Regulatory
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- Oracle / venue
- Smart-contract
- Stablecoin issuer
- Custody / ops
Indicative ranking only — descriptive of how Northvault currently weighs the risk model, not a predictive matrix. Read the full risk disclosure for the substance behind each category.
On-chain positions — including liquidity provision and tokenised cash exposure — depend on the correctness and security of third-party smart contracts. Bugs, upgrades, or exploits in these contracts can result in partial or total loss of the exposed allocation, regardless of overall book performance.
Market-maker lending allocations are exposed to the solvency, operational integrity, and collateral performance of counterparties. Loans are over-collateralised and exposure is capped at the counterparty level, but extreme market moves or operational failures can still produce loss, especially where collateral liquidation cannot keep pace with price moves.
USDC and USDT depend on the reserves and policies of their respective issuers. Both have experienced material depeg events historically. Northvault splits exposure between both and monitors issuer disclosures, but cannot insulate users from issuer-level events.
On-chain liquidity provision uses stablecoin-only pairs to minimise impermanent loss, but the risk is not eliminated. Sustained depegs, pool imbalances, or concentrated-liquidity range breaches can produce realised losses. Pool fees and incentives may also drop materially during quiet markets.
Opportunistic strategies (basis trades, cross-venue spreads, funding-rate positions) carry execution risk, slippage, and the possibility of rapid reversal. The opportunistic sleeve is intentionally small, but its yield contribution is the most variable in the book.
Pricing for on-chain positions depends on oracle feeds and DEX routing. Oracle staleness, manipulation, or routing failures can lead to mis-priced execution. Centralised venues used for market-maker lending or opportunistic strategies carry their own operational, withdrawal, and policy risk.
Withdrawals are processed from the reserves sleeve. In high-redemption-stress scenarios — for example a market-wide stablecoin run or coordinated counterparty stress — withdrawals may be queued or temporarily paused while strategies are wound down in an orderly manner.
Customer stablecoins are held in a multi-signature treasury wallet on Solana with a hot/warm/cold tier structure. While multi-sig substantially reduces single-point-of-failure risk, no custody arrangement is risk-free. Smart-contract bugs in the multi-sig software itself, key-management failures, and chain-level disruptions are real exposures.
Northvault operates under a non-US regulatory frame. Rules around stablecoins, on-chain credit, and digital-asset services are evolving globally. Changes in applicable rules — including in your jurisdiction — could affect product availability, terms, or your ability to access funds.
All displayed APYs are estimated, variable, and not guaranteed. Blended yield is a function of where stablecoin markets are at any given moment. In soft markets we let the floor go lower rather than reach for risk to defend a number.
Northvault is not available to residents or citizens of the United States, or to residents of any sanctioned jurisdiction. Eligibility is determined at account opening and may be re-evaluated.