📖FAQ
Read our Frequently Asked Questions for Stablecoin Staking
Disclaimer
The information provided in this document is for informational purposes only and has been sourced from publicly available information, or directly from the issuer or arranger of the investment product described herein. This document does not constitute, and should not be construed as, an offer, solicitation, recommendation, or advice to invest, buy, or sell any securities or financial products. We make no representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of the information provided. This document reflects only the information available to us at the time of publication and does not necessarily represent our views, opinions, or assessments of the investments discussed.
Potential clients are advised to conduct their own due diligence, seek independent financial advice, and consider their individual investment objectives, financial situation, and risk tolerance before making any lending decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Any investment in financial products carries inherent risks, and lenders should be aware that they may lose part or all of their invested capital.
We disclaim any liability for decisions made based on the information contained in this document and assume no responsibility for updating this information in the event of changes. By reviewing this document, you acknowledge and accept these limitations.
Product-Specific Risk Disclosure
OpenTrade Stablecoin Staking Yield powered by Figment is not a bank deposit, is not FDIC-insured, and does not guarantee returns. Your principal is at risk. The approximate 15% APR is based on historical data; actual results may vary materially and are subject to market, protocol, and counterparty risks. Withdrawal times may vary depending on protocol conditions. This product is designed to deliver potentially elevated yields on stablecoins and is structured with enhanced infrastructure safeguards (including custody controls, asset segregation, and known counterparties). However, users must remain aware of the inherent risks. Figment provides the staking infrastructure and access platform (Figment App and APIs). OpenTrade manages the stablecoin yield strategies. Crypto.com serves as the custodian. This product is intended for institutional clients only.
Information up-to-date as of 1 Nov 2025 and subject to change.
This site is authored and maintained by OpenTrade.
What happens when I invest in the vault?
When an investor deposits USDC, the stablecoins are transferred into the wallet of a bankruptcy-remote SPV (OpenTrade SPC). This wallet is hosted by Circle. The investor receives xSOLY vault tokens, which represent their share in the vault and accrue value as staking rewards accumulate.
USDC is then converted to SOL on the designated exchange. Simultaneously, an equal and opposite short position is opened in SOL perpetual futures to hedge price exposure. The SOL is held with a qualified custodian and staked via a Figment validator
Who are the key counterparties and service providers involved in the transaction lifecycle?
Open Trade Technology Ltd. ("Platform Provider")
London headquartered software firm responsible for developing & maintaining the OpenTrade Platform including the web app & blockchain protocol.
OpenTrade SPC ( "Borrower")
A bankruptcy remote Cayman Segregated Portfolio Company (SPC) operated by an independent board of directors. OpenTrade SPC is currently the only Borrower approved for the Treasury Management Product. OpenTrade SPC is the financial counter-party for Lenders and broker/dealers, banks, and custodians.
OpenTrade Foundation
OpenTrade Foundation is the sole shareholder of OpenTrade SPC. It serves to make OpenTrade SPC bankruptcy remote by ensuring that Five Sigma and Open Trade Technology Ltd have no ownership stake in OpenTrade SPC, meaning its assets would not form part of their bankruptcy estates in the event either party were to become insolvent. The OpenTrade Foundation's supervisor is Leeward Management, a leading corporate service provider in the Cayman Islands.
AWR Capital ("Investment Advisor")
AWR Capital is a London-based algorithmic trading hedge fund and financial services company founded by leading financial executives and portfolio managers. It advises OpenTrade SPC and is responsible for execution of the the delta-neutral SOL carry trade.
Five Sigma Finance Ltd. ("Investment Advisor")
Five Sigma Finance Ltd. ("Five Sigma") serves as an Investment Advisor. Five Sigma is a London-based, FCA regulated investment firm with over $800M AUMA. They are responsible for managing the day to day operations of OpenTrade SPC. Five Sigma is an appointed representative of Capricorn Fund Managers, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). For the Stablecoin Staking product, Five Sigma performs two functions (1) update the exchange rate daily and (2) issuing weekly attestations that show the assets and liabilities of the vault.
Figment
Figment is a Toronto-based blockchain infrastructure firm, founded in 2018, specializing in institutional-grade staking solutions for proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains. They provide staking infrastructure for over 700 institutional clients (asset managers, exchanges, custodians, foundations) across multiple networks. In the scope of this product, Figment provides all of the technical infrastructure required for SOL staking. It also provides access to the vault via Figment APIs and its web platform.
Crypto.com
Crypto.com is one of the world’s leading digital asset platforms, empowering over 100 million users globally to access, trade, and spend cryptocurrency with confidence. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Singapore, the company has built a trusted, fully regulated ecosystem that bridges traditional finance and Web3 through its exchange, mobile app, Visa card, and secure DeFi wallet. In this product, Crypto.com is the venue on which SOL and perp futures are traded. Crypto.com additionally provides qualified custody through which the SOL is staked with a dedicated Figment validator.
Mulvaney Trustees (UK) Ltd. dba Vantru ("Security Trustee")
Vantru serves as the Security Trustee, which holds a master security interest in the underlying loan collateral on behalf of Lenders. In the event of a default, Lenders can instruct the Security Trustee to take ownership of loan collateral to be liquidated or held to maturity so as to repay loans in default, pursuant to the Security Trust Deed executed between OpenTrade SPC and Vantru and as referenced in the Master Lending Agreement signed between OpenTrade SPC and Lenders.
Circle Internet Financial LLC ("Circle")
Circle is the issuer of USDC, the world's second largest stablecoin by market capitalisation. Circle serves as a custodian for USDC. USDC invested in the product is initially transferred to a Circle Mint account before being transferred to a Crypto.com exchange account. For withdrawal repayments, USDC is transferred from Crypto.com to the same Circle Mint account before being repaid to Lenders. Circle provides the ability to always mint and redeem USDC 1:1 with USD. Circle is a regulated and licensed money transmitter in the US.
What is the role of Crypto.com?
Crypto.com is one of the world’s leading digital asset platforms, empowering over 100 million users globally to access, trade, and spend cryptocurrency with confidence. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Singapore, the company has built a trusted, fully regulated ecosystem that bridges traditional finance and Web3 through its exchange, mobile app, Visa card, and secure DeFi wallet.
In this product, Crypto.com is the venue on which SOL and perp futures are traded. It also provides the qualified custody service through which the SOL is staked with a dedicated Figment validator. This means Crypto.com perp market is the sole determining factor of funding rates.
If and when additional exchange partners are introduced in the future, this will be done only after careful consideration and due diligence and all investors will be notified well in advance before trading / custody commences with that partner.
Once multiple exchange partners are live, funding rates will differ across the various exchanges. The strategy will seek to optimize for funding rates across exchanges.
Are SOL perps traded only on Crypto.com?
Currently, Crypto.com is the only venue on which SOL and perp futures are traded. It also provides the qualified custody service through which the SOL is staked with a dedicated Figment validator. This means Crypto.com perp market is the sole determining factor of funding rates.
If and when additional exchange partners are introduced in the future, this will be done only after careful consideration and due diligence and all investors will be notified well in advance before trading / custody commences with that partner.
Once multiple exchange partners are live, funding rates will differ across the various exchanges. The strategy will seek to optimize for funding rates across exchanges.
What if funding rates differ across exchanges?
Currently, Crypto.com is the only venue on which SOL and perp futures are traded.This means Crypto.com perp market is the sole determining factor of funding rates.
Once multiple exchange partners are live, funding rates will differ across the various exchanges. The strategy will seek to optimise for funding rates across exchanges.
What is the role of the Investment Advisor, AWR Capital?
AWR Capital is a London-based algorithmic trading hedge fund and financial services company founded by leading financial executives and portfolio managers.
As the Investment Advisor, AWR's mandate is to oversee the execution of the algorithmic delta-neutral SOL strategy. It does not have discretion to deviate outside the parameters of this strategy and it is contractually bound to always act in ways that ensure OpenTrade SPC can meet its obligations to investors at all times. Practically speaking this means it is either 1) moving into a delta-neutral staked SOL position following an investment or 2) moving out of the delta neutral position into USDC so the SPV can repay investor withdrawals and fulfil its obligations under the MLA.
What are xSOLY tokens and how do they work?
When an user invests USDC into the vault, they receive xSOLY ERC-20 vault tokens. Vault tokens represent the users position in the vault.
As interest accrues, the exchange rate between xSOLY and USDC increases, reflecting yield earned.
When the investor redeems, the xSOLY tokens are burned, and an equivalent amount of USDC is returned at the latest exchange rate.
For more information on vault tokens, see here.
How are withdrawals processed?
The investor submits a withdrawal request via the FigApp, OpenTrade Web App, or by calling the contract directly. OpenTrade will then unstake the corresponding portion of SOL (incl. any rewards received) based on the amount requested for withdrawal. The short perp position is closed simultaneously to maintain delta-neutrality. The SOL is converted back into USDC, which is repaid to the investor's wallet.
Withdrawal processing times are determined by the time required to unstake SOL. Depending on where in the Solana epoch the withdrawal is requested, this could take anywhere from 3 to 5 calendar days.
Instant liquidity facilities are available on a case by case basis. Please enquire with your account manager.
How can I verify the collateral exists?
Five Sigma, an FCA regulated asset manager produces a weekly “vault report” that attests to the vault's collateral (USDC, Staked SOL and perp futures of the vault) and liabilities (total outstanding loan principal).
What happen if OpenTrade, AWR, or Five Sigma ceases operations?
The vault is held inside a bankruptcy-remote Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) meaning the assets in the vault are legally segregated from Open Trade Technology Ltd, AWR, and Five Sigma's own balance sheet.
If these parties were to shut down or cease to operate, your funds would not form part of its assets and cannot be claimed by creditors.
A licensed Security Trustee (Vantru) holds a master security interest over all wallets and accounts on behalf of investors. In the event of default or enforcement , the Trustee can take control of the assets directly and return them to investors.
All assets are held with regulated counterparties who have been notified of the assignment to the Trustee.
Wallets are whitelisted and controlled by multi-signature access, ensuring no single party can move funds unilaterally.
What are the fees?
The vault charges a total fee of 1.10% per annum on the total amount invested in the vault.
This fee covers:
Platform fees – for operating the vault infrastructure and smart contracts.
Liquidity and execution costs – for trading, hedging, and maintaining exchange positions.
Advisory and management fees – for oversight, strategy management, and reporting.
All fees are netted from performance automatically, so investors see the yield after all fees are deducted.
What is the exchange rate? How are fees deducted from it?
The exchange rate between xSOLY and USDC is a number that can be used to determine the value of a given position and calculate returns time. As the collateral increases (or decreases) in value, the exchange rate increases (or decreases). For more on exchange rates, read here.
Fees are deducted from the exchange rate so that investors see the net performance.
How does staking work and generate yield?
Staking on Solana means helping to secure the network and earning SOL rewards in return.
When OpenTrade stakes SOL, it is delegating its tokens to a validator (like Figment) who helps confirm and add new blocks to the Solana blockchain.
OpenTrade SPC keeps ownership of your SOL and it never leaves its account.
The validator uses our delegated stake to increase its voting weight in the network’s Proof-of-Stake consensus system.
Solana’s blockchain is divided into time periods called epochs (usually about 2–3 days long). Each epoch is when the network calculates staking rewards, activates new stake, and deactivates unstaked tokens. When OpenTrade stakes SOL, it becomes active in the next epoch and when OpenTrade unstakes, it’s released after the current epoch ends.
Every epoch, the Solana protocol issues new SOL tokens (inflation) as rewards for validators who confirm blocks correctly. Validators receive these rewards and share them proportionally with the delegators (OpenTrade) who staked SOL with them.
The more SOL a validator has delegated to it and the better its performance, the higher the rewards it earns. These rewards are immediately re-staked by OpenTrade.
What are the risks associated with staking, and how are they mitigated
While staking SOL is considered a low-risk yield-generating activity, it still carries a few operational and protocol-level risks.
If the validator (Figment in Opentrade’s case) goes offline, misses blocks, or performs poorly, the vault may earn lower rewards during that epoch.
Mitigation:
The vault stakes exclusively with Figment, one of the largest and most reliable Solana validators, with >99.9% uptime.
Figment uses redundant infrastructure and real-time monitoring to maintain consistent performance.
How volatile are staking rewards?
While staking SOL is considered a low-risk, Staking rewards on Solana, particularly through Figment’s validator, have been remarkably stable over time. Based on historical data from September 2023 to 2025, Figment’s staking reward rate (SRR) averaged around 8.2% annualised.
Over this 18-month period, the lowest observed reward was 6.98% (on December 11, 2023), and the highest was 17.42% (on January 22, 2025), the latter coinciding with a period of elevated network activity and validator performance.
In general, staking yields have fluctuated within a narrow 7–9% band for most epochs, making them one of the most predictable sources of on-chain income compared with trading or funding-rate-based returns.
How fast can you unstake SOL?
When SOL is unstaked, it must go through a cooldown period of about 1 epoch (≈2–3 days) before becoming liquid. Once its unstaked, OpenTrade will unwind the corresponding perp future position and convert the SOL to USDC to repay the investor.
What are SOL PERPs and how do they work?
SOL PERPs (short for Solana Perpetual Futures Contracts) are derivative instruments that track the price of SOL, allowing traders to take long or short exposure to Solana without owning the underlying tokens.
A perpetual contract is similar to a traditional futures contract — except that it never expires. Instead of settling on a fixed date, PERPs are designed to track the spot price continuously through a funding rate mechanism between longs and shorts.
Because PERPs have no expiry, they rely on a periodic cash flow (the funding rate) to keep prices aligned with the spot market:
When the PERP price trades above spot, longs pay shorts (positive funding).
When the PERP trades below spot, shorts pay longs (negative funding).
The funding rate is reset every hour on Crypto.com. Other exchanges use different time intervals.
Every exchange requires margin before OpenTrade can trade a perpetual futures (PERP) contract. While certain exchanges offer leverage and cross margining (where the collateral is a pool of assets), OpenTrade will margin the SOL PERP with 100% SOL (staked SOL).
How deep is the PERP market?
The SOL PERP market is very deep and liquid, with billions of dollars in active positions and daily volume.
As of October 2025, there was in aggregate across the top 20 exchanges:
~$3.9 billion in perpetual open interest
~$34 billion per day
Do you use any leverage?
No. The perp is collateralised 1-to-1 with SOL staked with the Figment validator.
How do you make sure that you are always hedged?
OpenTrade, in partnership with AWR, uses an algorithmic legging process to enter the delta-neutral position efficiently and safely. When investor USDC is converted into SOL, the system simultaneously executes a long SOL spot trade and an equal-notional short SOL-PERP on the exchange.
Both legs are placed near-simultaneously through AWR’s execution engine, which continuously monitors order-book depth, spreads, and volatility to determine the optimal timing and size for each order.
The algorithm dynamically adjusts orders in milliseconds to keep the vault’s net SOL exposure (delta) as close to zero as possible, ensuring minimal slippage or temporary price risk during entry.
This automated legging process allows OpenTrade to deploy capital efficiently, maintain precise hedging accuracy, and ensure that each investor’s capital is fully protected from SOL price movements from the moment it is invested.
How is the funding rate calculated?
On crypto.com, the funding for perpetual contracts is settled hourly.
The funding rate is based on a “premium rate”, which is derived from the difference between the mark price of the perpetual contract and the index price (i.e. the spot/reference price) over a 4-hour interval.
The “Average Premium Rate” is calculated as the mean of the premium rate per minute over that 4-hour window.
Then the hourly funding rate = Average Premium Rate ÷ 4 (i.e. distributing that 4-hour premium across each hour).
During each hour end (session settlement), funding is transferred between longs and shorts: • If the funding rate is positive, longs pay shorts. • If the funding rate is negative, shorts pay longs.
How volatile is the funding rate? Can it generate an overall negative return?
The funding rate (based on Crypto.com’s data) for SOL-PERP has been fairly stable over the April 2, 2024, to October 14, 2025 period, averaging +0.000005 % per hour (about +1.6% annualised) with a median of +0.000004 %, showing a slight long-side bias. The highest hourly rate reached +0.000139 % per hour (≈ +12% annualised), while the lowest dipped to –0.000519 % per hour (≈ –45% annualised).
With an hourly standard deviation of just 0.000027, the data shows that funding rates are highly mean-reverting, oscillating around neutral levels and remaining comfortably within the margin covered by the vault’s 6–8% staking yield, making the strategy structurally resilient to funding fluctuations.
Do you track the funding rate direction?
AWR maintains a forecast for funding rates on all coins at all times.
How do you pay for the funding rate? How frequently and in which currency?
Funding is settled hourly in USDC on Crypto.com, with the vault paying or receiving small amounts automatically depending on whether the funding rate is negative or positive.
Opentrade will maintain a USDC position to cater to funding rate payments and will re-invest the excess USDC back into the strategy.
Can the PERP be liquidated because of a lack of collateral?
No, liquidation risk is virtually zero with the way the SOL Staking Yield product is designed, because the short SOL-PERP is fully collateralised with the same asset it tracks (SOL), and the structure creates what’s known as “right-way risk”: the collateral and OpenTrade’s PERP position move in the same beneficial direction so the margin improves when the market moves against our trade.
Can the PERP be liquidated because of an auto deleveraging policies applied by the exchange?
No, Crypto.com does not use auto deleveraging, so the position is always hedged.
Instead, Crypto.com maintains an Insurance Fund that accumulates liquidation fees paid by losing traders. Its purpose is to cover cases where a trader’s losses exceed their wallet balance following forced liquidation. If the Insurance Fund is depleted, and there remain uncovered losses from liquidations, then the Socialised Loss Mechanism is triggered. Under this mechanism, all traders with positive profits in that session must share the uncovered losses pro rata, based on the size of their profits.
If Socialised Loss is triggered, it effectively will reduce the realized profit by the pro-rata rate applied to OpenTrade based on the profits made.
What happens if SOL price increase by 10X or 20X?
Impact on hedging
Even though the PERP will incur a huge mark-to-market loss, the SOL collateral’s value will increase by exactly the same amount.
Collateral Value ≥ PERP Mark-to-Market Loss
Impact on Funding Rate:
If SOL’s price multiplies by 10× or 20×, the funding rate itself doesn’t mechanically increase and the rate will depend on market sentiment, not price level.
However such bull run typically drives long-side demand, causing funding to turn positive (longs pay shorts), so the vault would earn additional income.
Impact on staking rewards:
If SOL’s price increases, the staking rewards (in SOL terms) remains unchanged as the Solana protocol pays rewards in SOL, not in dollars. However, the USD value of those rewards will increase proportionally with the SOL price. As the product is fully hedged, rewards credited in SOL will be hedged upon receipt.
What happens if SOL price drops by 50%
Impact on hedging:
The PERP profit offsets the reduced SOL collateral value. The PERP gain is immediately marked to market, in real time.
The vault’s total account equity (SOL value + PERP PnL) remains constant.
Impact on Funding Rate:
The funding rate on SOL perpetual futures (SOL-PERPs) is likely to change meaningfully, because many traders will try to hedge or speculate on further downside, pushing the PERP price below spot temporarily as shorts crowd in. This is likely to push the funding rate into negative territory and OpenTrade will have to pay longs.
Impact on staking rewards:
If SOL’s price drops, the staking rewards (in SOL terms) remains unchanged as the Solana protocol pays rewards in SOL, not in dollars. However, the USD value of those rewards will fall proportionally with the SOL price. As the product is fully hedged, rewards credited in SOL will be hedged upon receipt.
What if SOL drops to 0?
In a theoretical scenario where the price of SOL is actually 0, we will have a market-to-market gain on the short perp equivalent to the nominal amount of our long position. In reality, the position will be unwound far in advance of this ever happening.
How do you respond to ADL (auto de-leveraging) ?
Crypto.com does not implement ADL so it is not a risk with the current vault set up. If and when the vault expands to exchanges that do, below is a summary of we mitigate the risk of ADL.
An Auto-Deleveraging (ADL) event happens when the exchange cannot close a liquidated trader’s position through the order book or insurance fund, and instead automatically reduces positions on the opposite side of the market (in our case partially or fully unwinding our short SOL-PERP position).
ADL on major assets like SOL is extremely rare and indicates a severe market dislocation (e.g., sudden price spikes and system-wide liquidations).
OpenTrade and AWR take a 5 steps approach to mitigating ADLs and the impact of ADLs:
Monitor ADL queues and alerts continuously track exchange ADL indicators, margin levels, and liquidation warnings through API or dashboard monitoring.
Pause new investments conversion: temporarily halt new deposits conversion into spot SOLANA; keeping incoming funds in USDC until the market normalises.
Diversify exposure across venues: spread hedge positions across multiple exchanges to reduce single-exchange ADL risk.
Rebalance to delta neutrality: adjust exposure to restore the vault’s delta-neutral position by selling the long or short position.
If ADL is triggered: rebuild the short hedge as soon as trading resumes, restoring the structure and validating margin health across venues. This may take a few hours and days depending on the size of the position.
How do you respond to persistently negative funding rates?
Historically, SOL’s average funding has remained either positive or negative in the low single digits, far below the staking yield, so the net carry remains strongly positive.
Over very short periods, exceptional large temporary dislocations between spot and PERP prices (inside a few hours) could create a small temporary mark-to-market loss (-0.5% on October 10th for example) if an investor enters when SOL funding or basis conditions are unfavourable and exits immediately afterward. These short-term effects are not reflective of true performance, since the vault is designed for a holding period of several days or longer.
Over the past 2years, the longest consecutive period of negative funding rates was 116 hours, or 4.8 days, generating a negative return of just 0.03% over that period.
The steepest negative funding rate in the same period was –0.000519 per hour, which occurred around October 10, 2025, at 16:00.
That deeply negative period lasted for about 73 hours (≈ 3 days) — from October 10, 2025, 16:00 until October 13, 2025, 16:00, generating a negative return of just 0.8% over that period.
If funding rates stay negative for a period of time (shorts pay longs) it creates a drag on the yield, reducing overall profitability. Although historically this is an exceptionally rare occurence, if they were to remain steeply negative for a sustained period of time, > 72 hours, the strategy will:
Quantify the net carry loss from funding vs staking yield
Pause new investments conversion : temporarily halt new deposits conversion into spot SOLANA; keeping incoming funds in USDC until the market normalises.
Convene a risk meeting with our investment advisors to decide on the way forward and the correct strategy to adopt.
The trading system operating by AWR tracks funding rates 24/7/365 and has automated monitoring and alerting so, in the above scenario, it would be apparent and monitored from the first instant it started.
How do you respond to / mitigate the risk of socialised losses?
Should the exchange impose a profit haircut (Socialised Loss) across profitable accounts to cover residual bankrupt losses, OpenTrade would:
Diversify exposure across venues: spread hedge positions across multiple exchanges to reduce single-exchange Socialised Loss risk.
Pause new investments conversion : temporarily halt new deposits conversion into spot SOLANA; keeping incoming funds in USDC until the market normalises.
Assess the impact on overall return and re-evaluate exchange selection if the risk persists.
Is the collateral lent or re-hypothecated ?
No. The collateral is held exclusively in the name of the bankruptcy remote SPV in segregated accounts (with Circle and Crypto.com) at all times and is never on-lent or re-hypothecated.
Is the OpenTrade Vault smart-contract audited?
Yes, all smart-contracts involved are audited by 3rd party cyber security experts. These audits are made publicly available here.
Are the accounts where collateral is held bankruptcy remote?
Yes, all accounts where collateral is held are bankruptcy remote. They are segregated accounts held in the name of the bankruptcy remote SPV, OpenTrade SPC. Each provider is given a notice of assignment which makes them aware of this arrangement from the very beginning of the engagement.
Each investor has a fully perfected security interest in the accounts and underlying collateral. For more information on the legal structure, see here.
For operational efficiencies, collateral is held in omnibus accounts but each investor's collateral is legally separate from those of other investors.
Is USDC and/or collateral held in segregated accounts ?
Investment proceeds and collateral is held in bankruptcy remote, omnibus accounts. There is a single exchange account, single custody account, and single dedicated Figment Solana validator. Each investor's collateral is still legally separate from those of other investors.
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