Architecture
The three core protocol layers and the capital-allocation layer that make up the CUSP network.
CUSP is a network built from three core protocol layers plus one capital-allocation layer. Every layer reads from CUSP Risk; everything the network does is published through the transparency rail.
| Layer | What it does |
|---|---|
| CUSP Markets | Permissionless, isolated capital markets for outcome-linked assets. Each market defines its own collateral, borrow asset, parameters, and liquidation route; borrowing runs on short, repriced terms with capacity that decays toward resolution. |
| CUSP Risk | A shared underwriting standard for event-driven collateral. Reads each market from the venue's authoritative record and publishes eligibility, a conservative value, limits, pricing, exposure caps, and a liquidation mode as an Outcome Risk Object. |
| CUSP Clear | Specialist liquidation, settlement, and default-management infrastructure: a structured unwind ladder that ends in descending-price auctions among bonded specialists. |
| CUSP Vaults | Curated strategies allocating capital across approved markets. Senior capital earns steadier income; junior capital takes first loss and earns the levered residual. Idle balances earn a base money-market rate from the first block. |
Market types live under CUSP Markets: standard credit lines, settlement advances against resolved claims, and maker facilities. The network's shared public record is Calibration and Transparency.
CUSP Risk is the hub. It turns each market into a published risk vector, and every other layer acts on that vector rather than re-deriving it: vaults decide what to finance, markets price and size loans, CUSP Clear forms and clears lots, settlement advances pay out resolved claims, the Outcome Risk Object carries the vector to outside integrators, and the transparency rail records every decision against the outcome that realized.
The market lifecycle
Every CUSP Market moves through the same seven steps:
- Market creation: a builder, venue, or curator creates an isolated market for an approved outcome asset, fixing its collateral, borrow asset, duration, and liquidation route.
- Underwriting: CUSP Risk evaluates the market and publishes its Outcome Risk Object: eligibility, stressed value, credit capacity, and exposure limits.
- Capital allocation: lenders fund the market directly, or a curated CUSP Vault allocates part of its capital under predefined limits.
- Borrowing: a trader deposits the supported position and draws USDC, with capacity that follows liquidity, concentration, and time to resolution.
- Term boundaries: every loan has a fixed duration; at each boundary it rolls at freshly published parameters, reduces, or repays.
- Clearing: if a position turns unhealthy, CUSP Clear works down the unwind ladder and takes the cheapest safe exit.
- Settlement: if the underlying market settles first, proceeds follow the repayment waterfall automatically: principal, then interest and fees, then the remainder to the borrower.
Where the old names went
Returning readers will recognize every mechanism; only the shelves changed.
| Old module | New home |
|---|---|
| Risk Engine | CUSP Risk |
| Position Standard | Outcome Risk Object |
| Controlled Credit | CUSP Markets |
| Tranched Vaults | CUSP Vaults |
| Liquidation Auctions | CUSP Clear |
| Instant Redeem | Settlement Advances, a market type under CUSP Markets |
| Calibration and Transparency | Unchanged |