FAQ

What is Upshift?

Upshift is the operating system for institutional onchain asset management.

We enable teams to design, build and integrate vaults for any DeFi and CeFi yield strategy. Our core focus is on giving teams full control over every step of the deployment process: from strategy design to integration.

Why now?

We are at a critical inflection point for the crypto industry:

• Stablecoins and tokenized assets have crossed $300B in market cap, widely adopted for payments

• Regulatory clarity has unlocked a wave of innovation across consumer finance, growing overall demand for yield

• Institutional giants like JP Morgan are coming onchain by launching tokenized money market funds and RWAs

As tokenized asset issuance and onchain participation grows, the demand for custom, transparent and risk-managed yield opportunities will scale significantly.

We believe vaults are the primary way to bring the next era of non-custodial asset management to DeFi.

What’s the long term vision?

Every wallet, neobank and fintech will offer Earn opportunities to users.

In TradFi, yield products like bonds and savings accounts represent a $100 trillion market. Vaults bring this to DeFi.

How does Upshift differ from other vault providers?

While other vault providers offer a limited canvas for vault design, Upshift providers a full-stack toolkit to built institutional-grade vaults:

• Broad strategy coverage: Deploy your vault on 30+ chains and 70+ protocols, combining DeFi and Cefi strategies in a single vault

• Compliant control: Vaults mandates are restricted to the scope of onchain policies e.g. supplying to the WETH market on Aave. Partners can also set KYC requirements and wallet screening to ensure compliance with local regulations

• Onchain transparency: Vault deployment is traceable onchain and depositors can view new strategy allocations in real-time

• Prime capabilities through August: KYC'd particpants can borrow against vault position through August, while vault curators execute strategies using August's sophisticated trading platform

Upshift lets teams integrate existing vaults for stablecoins, ETH and BTC, as well as design completely custom vaults with transparent strategies and controls tailored to your users' risk profiles.

Where does the yield come from?

Yield on Upshift comes from:

• Real yield: APY from the underlying protocols (e.g. lending, LPing, staking).

• Protocol rewards: Points or token incentives from the DeFi protocols used in the strategy.

• Yield tokenization: Users can use their tokenized yield-bearing positions to find additional yield opportunities across DeFi.

Each vault on Upshift is actively managed by a Curator. Curators are institutions such as hedge funds and asset managers who curate and execute DeFi yield strategies on your behalf.

Yield may also include rewards and points from protocols included in the vault strategy. For example Ethena may offer points to those who hold PT-USDe.

Who are the Vault Curators on Upshift?

Each vault on Upshift is actively managed by a Curator.

Curators are institutions such as crypto-native yield funds and asset managers who curate and execute DeFi yield strategies.

Existing vaults are curated by teams such as Sentora, Ultrayield/Edge Capital and M1 Capital.

How does Upshift mitigate risk in vaults?

Built on institutional-grade infrastructure, transparency and risk management are non-negotiable for Upshift. The platform mitigates risk across several axes:

• Built on August: Vaults use August’s smart contract infrastructure, trusted by institutions for over $7bn in monthly transaction volume

• Self-custodial by default: Your funds stay in your wallet; vaults are non-custodial by design

• Whitelisted protocols only: Curators can only deploy capital to vetted DeFi protocols and approved chains. Vaults can be customised to whitelisted specific protocols, depending on risk profile

• Curator transparency: Every vault displays exposure by protocol, token, and strategy. All curators are KYC’d institutions with verifiable track records

Key terms

Vaults

• ERC-4626 standard vaults which accept stablecoins and crypto assets. Vaults deposit into August subaccounts, from where hedge funds can execute DeFi yield strategies using funds.

Curators

• Curators are institutions such as hedge funds who manage vaults and run DeFi yield strategies on your behalf. Existing curators are MEV capital, Tulipa Capital, UltraYield, MNNC Group.

Receipt tokens

• After you deposit into a vault, your position is tokenized into a receipt token e.g. “This token represents my deposited $100 USDC and the yield it is accruing via the vault”

August

• August is the leading DeFi prime brokerage, managing $7bn in monthly transaction volume for instituional clients. August’s battletested smart contracts are the underlying infrastructure for Upshift vaults.