🎬Vault System Overview
Purpose of This Page
This page explains the core system model shared by all Secured Finance Vaults. It describes how user funds flow through the system, independent of any specific strategy.
Vault as the Core Capital Container
At the center of the system is the Vault.
A Vault is a smart contract that:
Accepts user deposits of a single asset
Issues Vault Shares to represent ownership
Keeps track of total assets and liabilities
Delegates capital deployment to strategies
The Vault itself does not generate yield. Instead, it acts as a capital coordinator and accounting layer.
This design is inherited from Yearn V3 and allows the Vault interface to remain stable even as strategies evolve.
Separation of Responsibilities
The Vault system is intentionally modular.
Each component has a clearly defined role:
Vault
Manages deposits and withdrawals
Issues and redeems shares
Tracks total assets
Strategy
Deploys assets to generate yield
Interacts with external protocols or markets
Periphery Modules
Enforce limits, fees, and configuration
Provide auxiliary logic without modifying core contracts
This separation allows strategies to be added, removed, or replaced without disrupting users.
Vault Shares and Ownership
When a user deposits assets into a Vault, they receive Vault Shares.
Vault Shares represent:
A proportional claim on the Vault’s total assets
Ownership that changes in value, not in quantity
As yield is generated by strategies:
The number of shares held by a user remains the same
The value of each share increases
This share-based model avoids rebasing and provides a consistent user experience across strategies.
Capital Flow (High-Level)
The typical flow of funds is:
User deposits assets into the Vault
Vault mints shares to the user
Vault allocates assets to one or more strategies
Strategies generate yield over time
Yield increases the Vault’s total assets
Users redeem shares to withdraw assets
All Vaults follow this same flow, regardless of the strategy used.
Strategy-Agnostic Design
A key design principle is that Vaults are strategy-agnostic.
The Vault does not assume:
How yield is generated
What external protocol is used
Whether returns are stable or volatile
All strategy-specific logic is intentionally isolated outside the Vault. This makes the system extensible and future-proof.
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