Yield on idle assets.

01How yield works

A vault deposit earns a return from the strategy that vault runs: interest paid by borrowers, or the outcome of market-making activity, depending on the vault type. Summo curates the vaults offered, handles deposits and withdrawals, and takes a performance fee on the return generated.

The performance fee is a share of the yield a vault generates, never of the principal deposited. Every rate shown in the app is net of that fee.

Rates are variable and move with conditions in each vault’s underlying market. The current rate for a vault is shown in the app before a deposit is made, and on the position once funds are deposited.

02Vault types

Two types of vault are offered.

• Lending vaults. Deposits are lent to borrowers on an established on-chain lending protocol, and the yield is the interest those borrowers pay. Each vault is curated by an independent risk manager, who sets which loans are allowed and what collateral is required.
• Market-making vaults. Deposits supply capital that a partner exchange uses as the counterparty to trading activity on its platform. The return reflects the outcome of that activity rather than interest paid by borrowers.

The vaults currently offered, and the network each is deployed on, are listed in the app.

03Deposits and withdrawals

Deposit and withdrawal rules differ by vault type, following the underlying protocol.

• Lending vaults. Withdrawable at any time, with no lockup. A deposit or withdrawal settles in a single on-chain transaction. A very large withdrawal can take longer, depending on the liquidity available in the underlying lending market at the time.
• Market-making vaults. Can carry a lockup set by the underlying protocol, counted from the most recent deposit; a new deposit resets the lockup for the entire position. The lockup for a vault is shown in the app before a deposit is made.

Moving funds into or out of a vault is an on-chain transaction, and its network fee is handled as described in fees and gas.

04Risks

Summo curates the vaults offered but does not operate the underlying strategies, and each vault type carries different risks.

• Lending vaults. Carry smart-contract risk: the underlying protocol has been independently audited by multiple firms, and no audit removes risk entirely. They also carry lending-market and curator risk, since a vault’s safety depends on the loans its curator allows and the collateral backing them. Under normal conditions, principal in a lending vault is expected to remain intact, since the return comes from lending interest rather than a trading strategy. That is not a guarantee: in an extreme event, part of a balance could be lost.
• Market-making vaults. Carry a materially higher risk. The vault takes the other side of trading activity on the exchange, and its return reflects the outcome of that activity. Principal is at risk under normal operation, not only in extreme events, and drawdowns can occur.

Earn is not a bank deposit and carries no deposit insurance. Rates are variable and not guaranteed. Vault positions remain under the account’s own keys for as long as funds stay deposited; see the account model.