Glossary
45 terms used across the Aqueduct app and these docs, from allocate to virtual offset.
A#
- Admin
- The key in the program config that manages vaults, strategies, fees, the keeper, the treasury and the pause switch. It is also the program's upgrade authority. More
- Allocate
- The keeper instruction that moves USDC from a vault's idle account into a strategy, checked against the strategy's cap. Its reverse is deallocate.
- APY
- Annual percentage yield, with compounding. Aqueduct reports every rate as an APY in percent.
B#
- Basis point (bp)
- One hundredth of a percent. 500 bps = 5%. Caps and fees are stored in basis points on-chain.
- Bedrock
- The lower-risk tier: blue-chip USDC lending only, with a 5% performance fee. More
- Bridge fee
- The cost of moving USDC across chains with CCTP. Simulated on devnet as 1 bp burned on each cross-chain keeper move.
C#
- CCTP
- Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol. It burns USDC on one chain and mints it natively on another, with no wrapped token.
- Concentration limit
- The keeper's rule that no venue's target exceeds 35% of a vault, on top of the on-chain strategy cap.
- Cooldown
- A minimum wait between moves: 60 minutes between reallocations in a vault, 6 hours per venue, and 24 hours before a flagged venue may receive funds again.
D#
- Deallocate
- The keeper instruction that moves USDC from a strategy back to the vault's idle account. It works while the protocol is paused.
- Deposit cap
- The most a vault may hold in total assets. 5,000,000 USDC per vault on devnet.
- Derisk
- A decision in which the sentinel forced at least one exit from a venue.
- Drift band
- How far a venue must be from its target before a venue-to-venue move is considered: the larger of 1.5% of the vault, 15% of the target and the minimum move.
F#
- Faucet
- The devnet instruction that mints up to 10,000 test USDC per call to anyone who asks.
- Frozen venue
- A venue that may lose funds but not gain them, because the sentinel flags it now or did in the last 24 hours.
H#
- High-water mark
- The highest share price on which a vault has charged a performance fee. Only gains above it are charged. More
- Hold
- A decision in which the keeper moved nothing. Most cycles are holds.
I#
- Idle account
- A vault's own token account. Deposits land in it and withdrawals are paid from it.
- Idle buffer
- The roughly 5% of each vault the keeper keeps idle for withdrawals.
K#
- Keeper
- The off-chain service that prices venues, runs the sentinel, plans and signs moves every 10 minutes and sweeps fees every hour. More
N#
- Net APY
- APY after the performance fee: gross × (1 − fee).
P#
- Paper executor
- A keeper mode that runs against simulated vaults in a local file instead of the chain.
- PDA
- Program-derived address: an account address computed from seeds and the program ID, with no private key. More
- Performance fee
- The share of yield above the high-water mark taken for the treasury: 5% on Bedrock, 10% on Rapids.
R#
- Rapids
- The higher-risk tier, adding credit, delta-neutral and fixed-rate products, with a 10% performance fee. More
- Remaining accounts
- Extra accounts passed to an instruction. Aqueduct uses them for the vault's strategy, reserve and reserve-token triplets.
- Reserve
- On devnet, a simulated venue inside the program that holds real test tokens and earns the real venue's live APY. More
- Risk score
- A judgement from 1 (safest) to 10 attached to every strategy. The optimizer penalises it squared.
S#
- Sentinel
- The keeper's rule engine that classifies every venue as ok, caution or pause and lowers caps accordingly. More
- Smoothed APY
- The exponential moving average of a venue's APY (12-hour half-life, outliers clamped) that the planner uses instead of spot rates.
- Spread
- The difference between two venues' risk-adjusted scores, in APY points. A move must earn its spread minus a 0.5-point margin.
- Strategy
- One whitelisted venue of a vault, with an on-chain cap, risk score, chain and enabled flag. Up to 8 per vault.
- Strategy cap
- The most a strategy may hold as a share of the vault, enforced by the program on every allocation.
T#
- Targets
- The weights the optimizer would choose if moving were free. The vault moves toward them only when a move pays.
- Tier
- A risk level with its own vault: Bedrock or Rapids.
- Total assets
- A vault's idle balance plus the current value of every strategy position.
- Treasury
- The account that receives performance-fee shares.
- Turnover budget
- The most the keeper may move between venues: 10% of a vault per cycle and 20% per rolling 24 hours. Exits and deploys from idle are not counted.
U#
- Utilisation
- The share of a lending venue's deposits that is borrowed. Near 100%, depositors may be unable to withdraw.
V#
- Vault
- The program account for one tier, with its idle account, strategies and share mint. More
- Verdict
- The sentinel's classification of a venue: ok, caution (cap lowered) or pause (exit).
- Virtual offset
- 1,000 phantom base units added to both sides of the share math, which defeats the first-depositor inflation attack.