FAQ

What is Upshift?

Upshift democratizes access to institutional yield.

Upshift is a platform offering access to yield strategies run by some of the best-performing DeFi funds. Vaults are non-custodial and built on top of August infrastructure, the leading DeFi prime brokerage for institutions, handling $7B in monthly volume across its smart contracts. Upshift is designed for the next era of institutional-grade DeFi, as stablecoins and RWAs onboard trillions of on-chain capital.

Why now?

We are at a critical inflection point for the crypto industry. Institutions are here, stablecoins are going to trillions in market cap and everyone wants yield.

• Stablecoin capital is searching for yield again and the stablecoin market cap is rapidly growing, now peaking at more than $230 billion.

• Institutions already trust August for $7bn in monthly transaction volume. Upshift is the retail expansion of August.

• Yield is become a more composable part of the DeFi landscape, with deep liquidity attracted towards tokenized yield and capital efficient products.

What’s the long term vision?

Today, Upshift is starting by democratizing institutional yield products.

While the vault is the core starting primitive, Upshift's vision is to facilitate all aspects of the yield generation journey. This ranges from (social) discovery, risk assessment and stablecoin yield, all the way to embedded distribution in Web2 fintechs and TradFi institutional products.

How does Upshift support stablecoins?

We believe that stablecoins will easily become a trillion dollar industry. Trillions need yield.

We also believe that stablecoins and tokenized assets will require secure, sustainable and institutional-grade yield. With 600m holders of crypto assets globally and the majority passive, yield is the Trojan horse for onboarding users to actively participate in on-chain finance.

Initial stablecoin vaults already live on Upshift: USDC, AUSD and sUSDe.

Is Upshift just another vault platform?

No. Vault platforms today range from simple, automated looping and lending - or speculative pre-deposit vaults for new ecosystems.

As the number of stablecoin and crypto holders grow, there is an opportunity to serve the users who want to earn DeFi yield through sophisticated strategies capturing more than just basic lending pool optimization.

That means starting with actively managed vaults curated by top DeFi yield funds, and evolving into a full-stack yield infrastructure that includes social curation, risk assessment and stablecoin yield.

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 hedge funds and asset managers who curate and execute DeFi yield strategies.

Existing vaults are curated by MEV capital, Tulipa Capital, UltraYield, MNNC Group. Upshift plans to onboard more curators to offer specialized yield strategies.

How does Upshift mitigate risk for your funds?

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.