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Vault Protections

The mechanisms that bound what can go wrong operationally, independent of whether the strategy makes money.

Valuation and settlement are separate permissions​

The valuation manager can propose a NAV and nothing else. The curator can settle a NAV the valuation manager already proposed. Neither key can do the other's job, so a single compromised operational key cannot both invent a valuation and act on it.

The vault is configured so a proposed NAV never applies by timeout. It applies only through an explicit settlement.

A valuation that fails its checks is never used​

Every computed NAV passes a set of guards before it can be pushed or settled:

  • First NAV zero. On a fresh vault the first NAV must be zero, so the first depositor anchors the share price at par.
  • Divergence cap. A NAV moving more than a configured number of basis points against the previous one is rejected. The HyperEVM deployment has run this at 1000 bps.
  • Negative NAV is fatal. A negative computed value halts the cycle rather than being clamped.
  • Per-cycle locks. One cycle at a time, so a slow cycle cannot overlap the next.

A NAV that fails a guard produces a missed settlement, not a mispriced one.

The first-NAV-zero rule exists because of a real failure. On a test vault a curator pushed an inflated first valuation, and the resulting share price of roughly 27 times par was permanent: the framework has no in-band way to unwind it.

The trading key cannot withdraw​

On Hyperliquid the trading key is registered as an agent of the Safe. It can trade the account and cannot move funds out of it.

Venues and assets are allowlisted​

Every asset and venue adapter sits on an admin-maintained allowlist. An unlisted venue cannot be used by the execution layer.

Execution bounds are enforced, not requested​

Slippage bounds are computed from onchain TWAP prices rather than supplied by the backend. A minimum cooldown enforces spacing between rebalances. Aggregate notional per rebalance is capped as a fraction of NAV. A proposal that violates any of these is rejected atomically; there is no partial execution.

Stale signal means hold, never flatten​

If the signal is stale the strategy holds its current book rather than closing it. Flattening on stale data would turn an information outage into a realised loss, at the moment the system knows least about the market.

Fee changes are delayed onchain​

Fee rates sit behind a 24 hour cooldown. A change is visible as pending before it takes effect.

Emergency procedures​

The curator has an eject subsystem: an operator-triggered evacuation of the vault's Hyperliquid footprint back into the Safe.

It is not a user-facing pause, and there is no Guardian role in the deployed contracts.

Monitoring​

The curator pages a human on a signing key running low on gas, three consecutive failed cycles, and no successful NAV push within a watchdog window. Critical conditions escalate by SMS rather than chat alone.

That design followed an incident: in June 2026 a signing key ran out of gas and settlements froze for 34.7 hours while a single muted chat alert was deduplicated silently.