Documentation

Everything you need to know about Onyx Vault V3: how it works, how your deposits earn yield, and how your funds are protected.

Overview

Onyx Vault is a multi-strategy DeFi yield vault built on Base (Coinbase's Layer 2 network). It accepts ETH deposits and automatically deploys capital across multiple yield-generating strategies to maximize returns.

Instead of manually managing positions across multiple DeFi protocols, you deposit once and the vault handles everything: strategy allocation, rebalancing, compounding, and risk management.

Key Features

  • Multi-strategy yield: Four strategies working in parallel
  • Three risk tiers: Conservative, Balanced, and Aggressive
  • Auto-compounding: Yields compound automatically on harvest
  • Withdraw anytime: No lockups, no exit fees
  • ERC-4626 standard: Battle-tested tokenized vault architecture
  • 6-hour timelock: All admin changes are delayed and public

How It Works

  1. Connect your wallet on Base network (MetaMask or any WalletConnect-compatible wallet)
  2. Choose a risk tier: Conservative, Balanced, or Aggressive
  3. Deposit ETH. The vault wraps it to WETH and deploys it across strategies based on your tier
  4. Earn yield automatically. Strategies generate returns from lending, LP fees, and farming rewards
  5. Withdraw anytime. No lockups. Request a withdrawal and your ETH is returned

When you deposit, the vault mints shares representing your proportional ownership. As strategies earn yield, the value of your shares increases. When you withdraw, shares are burned and you receive your original deposit plus accumulated yield.

Gas costs on Base are minimal. Deposits and withdrawals cost approximately $0.01 each.

Strategies

Onyx Vault deploys capital across four distinct strategies. Each strategy targets a different source of yield on Base.

Aave V3 Lending

The safest and most battle-tested strategy. Your ETH is supplied to Aave V3 on Base, earning the base supply interest rate. Aave is the largest lending protocol in DeFi with over $10B in TVL across all chains.

How it works

WETH is deposited into the Aave V3 lending pool. Borrowers pay interest to use your liquidity, and that interest flows back to you. Simple, low-risk, and battle-tested.

  • Risk level: Low
  • Yield source: Borrower interest payments
  • Impermanent loss: None
  • Expected APY: 2-6%

Points Farmer

Optimizes for protocol points and potential future airdrops across the Base ecosystem. This strategy positions capital to accumulate maximum points from protocols that are likely to airdrop tokens.

How it works

Capital is allocated to protocols that reward early participants with points, which may convert to tokens in the future. This is speculative yield on top of any base returns.

  • Risk level: Medium
  • Yield source: Base returns + speculative airdrop value
  • Expected APY: Varies (base yield + potential airdrop upside)

Risk Tiers

Onyx Vault offers three risk tiers, each with a different allocation across the four strategies. Choose the tier that matches your risk tolerance.

Conservative

~2-3%
100% Aave Lending

Balanced

~2-4%
70% Aave Lending
30% Points Farmer

Aggressive

~2-5%
50% Aave Lending
50% Points Farmer

Allocations are set on-chain and enforced by the StrategyRouter contract. Any changes to tier allocations must go through the 6-hour timelock, giving depositors time to exit if they disagree.

Fee Structure

Management Fee: 0%

Zero management fees — forever for Genesis season depositors. No hidden charges on your principal.

Performance Fee: 10% on yield

Taken only from profits, not principal. If the vault earns 10% yield, the protocol takes 1% and you keep 9%.

Fees are collected automatically during harvest operations. There are no deposit fees, no withdrawal fees, and no lockup penalties.

Example: You deposit $10,000 into the Balanced tier earning 15% APY. Gross yield: $1,500/year. After the 10% performance fee ($150), your net return is $1,350 (13.5% net APY). Genesis depositors pay 0% management fee.

Genesis Season: 0% Management Fees

The first $500K in total deposits (Season 1) qualifies for 0% management fees permanently. If you deposit during the Genesis window, you will never pay the 1% management fee on that deposit, even after the cap is reached.

Only the 10% performance fee applies to Genesis depositors. This is an incentive for early supporters who help bootstrap the vault's TVL.

Limited to 100 Vault OG spots. The first 100 unique depositors also receive a Vault OG NFT badge.

Audit and Security

Onyx Vault was designed with security as the top priority. The codebase has gone through 9 independent internal audit passes with over 50 vulnerabilities identified and remediated before deployment.

✓ 9 Audit Passes  |  9.5/10 Confidence Score

Final audit verdict: 0 Critical, 0 High, 0 Medium severity issues. All findings were Low or Informational and have been addressed.

Important: These were internal audits, not by a third-party security firm. While thorough (9 independent passes, 50+ findings fixed), the protocol has not been audited by firms like Trail of Bits, OpenZeppelin, or Certora. Use at your own risk and never deposit more than you can afford to lose.

Security Architecture

  • ERC-4626 compliant: Built on the battle-tested tokenized vault standard
  • Reentrancy protection: All external calls protected with reentrancy guards
  • Access control: Role-based permissions with separate admin, strategist, and guardian roles
  • Deposit caps: Configurable per-tier and global deposit limits
  • Slippage protection: Minimum output checks on all strategy operations
  • Tier-isolated strategies: Each risk tier runs its own strategy instances — no cross-contamination

6-Hour Timelock

All admin actions on the vault and strategies are routed through the OnyxTimelockV3 contract with a mandatory 6-hour delay. This means:

  • No admin change can take effect immediately
  • All queued changes are publicly visible on-chain
  • Users have a full 6 hours to review any pending change and withdraw if they disagree
  • The timelock delay cannot be reduced below 6 hours

This protects depositors from sudden, unannounced changes to fees, allocations, or any other vault parameters.

Emergency Exit

The vault includes an emergency withdrawal mechanism. If the vault is paused (by the guardian in case of a detected exploit or abnormal behavior), users can still withdraw their funds through the emergency exit.

  • Always available: Emergency withdrawal works even when the vault is paused
  • No admin access to funds: Admin cannot withdraw user deposits under any circumstances
  • Vault-balance fallback: If strategies are emptied via emergency withdrawal, the vault serves withdrawals from its own balance

Onyx Points

Onyx Points are earned passively for every dollar deposited per day. Points accumulate automatically and may be used in future protocol governance or reward distributions.

Points Rates

  • Conservative tier: 1x multiplier (1 point per $1/day)
  • Balanced tier: 1.5x multiplier
  • Aggressive tier: 2x multiplier

Early Depositor Bonus

  • First 6 hours: 3x points multiplier
  • First week: 2x points multiplier
  • After first week: Standard 1x rate

NFT Badges

Onyx Vault mints dynamic ERC-721 NFTs that represent your deposit. These NFTs feature on-chain SVG artwork that updates in real-time with your deposit value, points balance, and tier status.

NFT Tiers (by deposit size)

  • 🥉 Bronze: Under $500
  • 🥈 Silver: $500 to $5,000
  • 🥇 Gold: $5,000 to $50,000
  • 💎 Obsidian: $50,000+

Vault OG Badge: The first 100 unique depositors receive a special Vault OG badge. This badge is permanent and cannot be earned after the 100 spots are filled.

NFTs are fully tradeable on any NFT marketplace. Selling your NFT effectively transfers your vault position to the buyer.

Referral System

Earn 5% of your referrals' yield by sharing your unique referral code. Referral rewards are paid from protocol fees, never deducted from the referred user's earnings.

How Referrals Work

  1. Deposit into the vault to get your referral code
  2. Share your code with others
  3. When they deposit using your code, you earn 5% of their yield
  4. Rewards accumulate and can be claimed anytime
Example: 10 referrals with $5,000 average deposits at 15% APY. Your annual referral income: approximately $375.

Minimum deposit to qualify for referral tracking: 0.003 WETH (approximately $7).

Seasons

Onyx Vault operates on a 7-day season cycle. Each season resets the competitive leaderboard, giving every depositor a fresh chance to earn top ranks.

  • Season 1 (Genesis): 0% management fees for the first $500K TVL
  • Leaderboard: Top depositors, referrers, and point holders are ranked each season
  • Season rewards: Future seasons may include additional incentives for top performers

Smart Contracts

All Onyx Vault contracts are deployed on Base Mainnet (Chain ID 8453). Click any address to view it on BaseScan.

Contract Type Address
OnyxVaultV3 Core 0xb34c7c2cd301c407d756616b92083810e5c51f6e
StrategyRouterV2 Core 0xa80d87b96001f1ac7147e81b3ddf363379e101cd
OnyxTimelockV3 Security 0x4400284050fc3b17919ce88b52460d777ce42cb3
AaveLending — Conservative (T0) Strategy 0xd1501592cceab981d6d51444f0f5b1ae31f3dc5a
AaveLending — Balanced (T1) Strategy 0xcda9dc6013437cc250bc57bdab9484cf863f8e8a
AaveLending — Aggressive (T2) Strategy 0x5c37eca27d3797f0d3ad4af6b4faa0696211d67f
PointsFarmer — Balanced (T1) Strategy 0xb9d7a3dbd608958a9ce7332949b201d9498bf891
PointsFarmer — Aggressive (T2) Strategy 0x01354e270cf9d0905c1f9254cfd4874bd5174254
OnyxNFT Viral 0xf65528dc44b52b43dbb9b1074f38f10809cef069
OnyxPoints Viral 0xfd61ef7d1b49fdf3f9698f70b85d824506542994
OnyxReferrals Viral 0xdf0a583cf7bcefb6c3ffd12a944d90968d7dc3ba
OnyxSeasons Viral 0xfd86a4858ed4ea481cadb9cc1e081e6144a6afcc

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the minimum deposit? ▾
There is no enforced minimum deposit. However, because of gas costs (approximately $0.01 per transaction on Base), extremely small deposits may not be economical. A practical minimum is around 0.003 WETH (approximately $7).
How do I withdraw my funds? ▾
Connect your wallet on the app page, navigate to the Withdraw tab, enter the amount you want to withdraw, and confirm the transaction. Your ETH will be returned to your wallet. There are no lockup periods and no withdrawal fees.
How are fees calculated? ▾
The management fee (0% for Genesis depositors) is calculated annually on your total deposit and accrues continuously. The 10% performance fee is taken only from yield profits when harvest is called. For example: if you earn $100 in yield, the protocol takes $10 and you keep $90. Neither fee is charged on your original deposit.
What happens in an emergency? ▾
If the vault detects abnormal conditions, the guardian can pause the vault. During a pause, all deposits are halted but withdrawals remain active through the emergency exit function. Your funds are never locked. The admin can also trigger an emergency withdrawal from strategies, which pulls all capital back to the vault for users to withdraw directly.
How do referrals work? ▾
After depositing, you receive a unique referral code. Share it with others. When someone deposits using your code, you earn 5% of their yield as a referral reward. This is paid from protocol fees and does not reduce the referred user's earnings. Rewards accumulate on-chain and can be claimed at any time.
Can I switch between risk tiers? ▾
Yes. Withdraw from your current tier and deposit into a different one. Each tier is a separate pool with its own allocation, so switching requires a withdraw and re-deposit.
What networks and tokens are supported? ▾
Onyx Vault is deployed on Base Mainnet (Coinbase L2). The vault accepts ETH deposits, which are automatically wrapped to WETH internally. You need ETH on Base in your wallet to deposit.
Is the vault audited? ▾
The vault has undergone 9 independent internal audit passes with a 9.5/10 confidence score. Over 50 vulnerabilities were found and fixed across all audit rounds. The final audit found 0 Critical, 0 High, and 0 Medium issues. However, these were internal audits, not performed by a third-party auditing firm. All smart contracts are verified and open source on BaseScan for anyone to review.
Can I lose my deposit? ▾
Yes. This is DeFi, and all deposits carry risk. Risks include smart contract bugs, strategy underperformance, and exploits in underlying protocols (Aave). Never deposit more than you can afford to lose. The Conservative tier minimizes these risks but does not eliminate them.
Who controls the vault? ▾
The vault, router, and all strategies are owned by the 6-hour timelock contract. This means all administrative changes (fee adjustments, allocation changes, strategy updates) require a 6-hour public waiting period before execution. Users can monitor pending changes on-chain and exit before they take effect. The router is now upgradeable via timelock governance.