Five DeFi Projects Under Observation: From Tiered Vaults to On-Chain Perpetual Order Books

Scanning new DeFi projects: fixed rates, tiered vaults, and funding rate spreads.

Written by: @Rightsideonly

Compiled by: AIdidiaoJP, Foresight News

Note: This article is for project observation and information organization only. The projects mentioned are mostly in early stages with high uncertainty. Readers are advised to make independent judgments and be aware of risks.

This week, I discussed the projects I focused on and learned about during the conference. Some are still in anonymous development and are awaiting team updates. Here are five projects I am actively tracking: Mezzanine, INFINIT, IRIS, RISEx, and Boros. To be clear, there are no conflicts of interest; I just think Boros is really cool.

Mezzanine: Breaking Down Single Assets or Yield Strategies into Multiple Tiers

Mezzanine builds structured vaults around single assets or single yield strategies, then breaks the vaults into different tiers.

Subordinate assets bear losses first and take a larger share of the profits; priority comes after the buffer, with lower yields. An intermediate tranche (Mezzanine tranche) can also be optionally set, with a longer withdrawal period.

Each vault also has a non-interest-bearing base token, which is in a super-priority position and ultimately bears the losses. Deposits are first converted into this base token before entering a specific tier, a step that is automated by the App.

Mezzanine has not yet launched, but the first vault has been fully documented, and the strategies have been running elsewhere: Hastra Optimizer Vault. Users deposit USDC or wYLDS on Ethereum, and the strategy converts the funds into Hastra PRIME and AUTO, then cycles through Morpho and Kamino; Aave, Exponent, and Pendle are listed as potential venues.

The reserve is $50,000, funded by the asset manager, with an additional month's vault earnings held in a custodial account. In terms of security, the project has been audited by Sherlock and ChainSecurity and formally verified by Certora; partners listed on the official website include Pendle, Kamino, Upshift, and RedStone.

The profit-sharing ratio between priority and subordinate levels has not been disclosed. The documentation states that when the vault page opens, it will display the base rewards and risk premium ratios; I will keep an eye on future updates.

INFINIT: Managed Trading Vaults with an Annualized Return of Approximately 32%

INFINIT operates managed trading vaults, executing trades on Hyperliquid. External strategy managers are responsible for operations and must invest their own funds as first loss. The first vault is APEX Quants' APEX MultiStrategy, which began trading on July 30 and is currently performing as expected.

This vault is based on a deposit of $506,100 USDC, with a 7.18% increase over 82 days; as of October 20, the annualized rate according to the App is 31.94% APR.

The vault goes long and short on Hyperliquid, covering crypto assets, stocks, commodities, and indices, relying on market conditions to determine when to trade; it remains in cash when no assets meet the scoring threshold.

Backtesting shows an annualized return of 163% over an 84-day window, with a maximum drawdown of 10.5%. The real-world return of 31.94% is below the manager's own conservative estimate of 40% to 90%, but far exceeds most DeFi mining yields, making the next vault worth looking forward to.

The IN token will distribute part of the execution fees to stakers, used to unlock App features and comes with governance voting rights. Vault 1 will redeem on October 28, with the deposit window for Vault 2 planned from October 28 to November 11. As of this writing, Vault 1 has 8 trading days left, and the strategy has been validated in real-world trading.

IRIS: Overlaying Fixed-Rate, Fixed-Term Loans on Existing Lending Markets

IRIS overlays fixed-rate, fixed-term loans on existing lending markets. It does not create a separate interest rate market but is built on Morpho Blue and Aave V3, thus not needing to start liquidity from scratch.

The mechanism is roughly as follows: market makers (solvers) sign off-chain quotes, and once accepted by borrowers, the borrowing rate is locked until maturity, while the underlying venues still receive floating rates. Solvers pay a margin to cover the gap between fixed and floating rates, earning the spread plus collateral returns, minus protocol fees.

Each loan is packed into a one-time “pod” (isolation chamber), where collateral and debt are isolated and not mixed with other loans; positions can be refinanced between whitelisted platforms.

IRIS currently does not disclose TVL, loan volume, or token issuance. There is still much to be done, but if successful, it could open a new path for fixed-term loans without creating new liquidity pools.

RISEx: A Perpetual Contract DEX with an On-Chain Order Book

RISEx is a perpetual contract DEX with an order book running entirely on the RISE EVM. RISE operates on Optimistic Rollup L2. There is no off-chain matching engine here; orders, matching, and settlement are all on-chain states, and other contracts can read and trade based on the same transaction.

Currently tracking 43 perpetual markets, with open contracts totaling approximately $39 million, it is still considered a new project. Major coins have a maximum leverage of 25 times, using USDC as collateral.

RISE has raised $8 million, including $4 million from Galaxy Ventures in June 2025; seed round investors include Vitalik Buterin and Stani Kulechov.

RISEx does not have a token yet. The RISE chain and RISEx claim to be “one team, one vision, one token.” The mainnet is still restricted, requiring an invitation or a waitlist recommendation to enter.

Boros: Creating Markets for Various Interest Rates, Starting with Perpetual Funding Rates

Boros addresses market inefficiencies by creating markets for various interest rates. Currently, the focus is on perpetual funding rates: users can leverage to go long or short on Yield Units, converting floating funding rates into fixed implied APR.

On October 15, Boros launched a spread market: ETH and BTC, with the underlying being the difference between Hyperliquid funding rates and Gate funding rates. A position tracks the spread between the two venues; at launch, the short quotes were around 25% to 35% fixed APR.

How do both sides make money? By shorting the spread while hedging with perpetual contracts at both venues, achieving delta neutrality and earning a fixed implied APR of about 25% to 35%. Going long on the spread means collecting the actual spread at each settlement, as long as the actual spread remains higher than the fixed rate you pay.

Arbitrageurs continuously shorting will push the fixed rate down; long traders will buy in cheaply. The operations of both sides create advantages for each other, thus increasing the trading volume.

Users can also execute fixed-rate trades through the CrossEx terminal. This is a free, open-source application running on their own machines. It scans all Boros markets, comparing them with Gate CrossEx perpetual contracts, calculating net annualized returns after deducting fees and slippage; after selecting a market, it locks in Boros's fixed rate side first, then hedges the perpetual contract side at Gate in the correct order. The interface displays the locked fixed APR, margin, whether it remains delta neutral, and the expected return at maturity.

This sounds like a trading desk strategy, but it's not just trading desks that do this. User @gabavineb posted that after going long on the spread for 25 days, a position of 9.19 ETH earned 1.96 ETH, about 21%, and also wrote down the steps of the operation.

If you want to understand things before putting funds in, Boros Academy explains the mechanisms and common strategies: interest rate speculation, hedging one's funding costs, and delta-neutral arbitrage. Spending an afternoon watching the Academy and then trying it out with a small position is enough to understand.