Sprint
- Revenue share
- 80%
- Cap
- no cap
A-tier with imminent release, tour, sync, or brand placement. A week of revenue is plenty.
Artist vaults · v1 mechanics
Invest USDC into the artists who need capital most.
Receive a share of their future revenue.
Each vault is one artist deal. Artists set the term, the revenue share, and the cap, so the headline of every vault self-prices against the artist's leverage. Investors deposit USDC (any chain in via the LI.FI swap), the artist locks SUEDE in the same vault as skin-in-the-game, and revenue routes back to depositors over the term.
Status: v1 mechanics ratified. First vault opens with one consenting artist on Base. Watch this page for the live deal.
Vault archetypes
Artists pick three knobs at vault creation: term, revenue share, and cap multiple. These archetypes are presets the UI suggests, not requirements. Every vault's headline is the term it commits to.
Standard
- Revenue share
- 50%
- Cap
- 1.5×
Mid-tier recoupment shape. Investor exits at 1.5× their principal.
Long bond
- Revenue share
- 30%
- Cap
- 2.0×
Rising artist priced for upside. Investor stays in until they collectively receive 2× principal.
Perpetuity
- Revenue share
- 10%
- Cap
- no cap
Unproven artist or lifetime trust trade. Lower share, infinite duration.
SUEDE lock determines USDC withdrawal
The artist must lock SUEDE in the same vault as skin-in-the-game. The size of that lock determines how much of the raised USDC the artist can pull immediately, vs. how much vests over the term. Floor of 3% on every vault.
SUEDE lock (% of raise)Immediate USDCRemaining vests
3% (floor)50% upfront50% linear over term
5%70% upfront30% linear over term
8%85% upfront15% linear over term
10%+100% upfrontnone
Lock duration matches the term, with a hard floor of 24 months for any vault marked perpetuity (otherwise perpetuity locks are gameable). Released proportionally as the cap is hit or the term elapses.
How a deposit flows
- Investor deposits any chain's asset via the LI.FI swap. Routed to USDC on Base at deposit time.
- Position issued as an on-chain card with vault ID, principal, share, timestamp.
- Artist locks SUEDE in the same vault. The lock size determines how much of the raised USDC the artist withdraws immediately.
- Revenue routes via the existing RoyaltyDistributor contract. A configurable share streams back to investor positions in USDC, pro-rata.
- Term or cap fires and the vault closes. Locked SUEDE releases on schedule. Position is transferable on secondary if the investor wants to exit early.
Investor SUEDE-stake tier
Investors who stake SUEDE separately from any vault deposit get allocation priority on oversubscribed vaults and follow-on rounds, re-using the OG-staker tier weights from the existing rewards system. Pre-April 29 stakers retain their 4× tier weight and 2× rewards boost.
- T0 — no stake. Last in line, fills remaining cap if any.
- T1 — up to $500. Standard allocation.
- T2 — $500 to $5,000. 1.5× weighted allocation.
- T3 — $5,000 to $50,000. 2× weighted + 24h pre-allocation window.
- T4 — $50,000+. 4× weighted + 48h pre-allocation window + curated deal list.
Why holding SUEDE matters here
The vault product is built so that real activity routes value back to SUEDE holders. Five compounding levers, all live from v1.
Artist-side lock
Every artist locks SUEDE in their own vault as skin-in-the-game. 3% floor, scales to 10%+ for full upfront withdrawal. Locked for the term, 24-month minimum on perpetuity.
Each $80k vault at 5% lock ≈ $4k SUEDE sunk. Direct supply sink that grows with TVL.
Hold $500+ SUEDE, pay zero deposit fee
Vault deposits carry a 0.75% protocol fee in USDC. The fee is waived for any investor holding $500 or more in SUEDE at deposit time, mirroring the existing song-generation holder rate.
A $10k deposit pays $75 or zero. Every serious investor ends up with SUEDE in wallet.
Tiered yield kicker on every vault payout
The T0–T4 stake ladder doesn't just buy allocation priority. Higher-tier stakers receive a yield kicker on their vault payouts, paid from a treasury reserve seeded by Lever 2 fees.
- T2 $500 – $5k +5%
- T3 $5k – $50k +15%
- T4 $50k+ +30%
T4 in a Standard vault sees an effective 65% rev share. Pre-April 29 OG stakers get +1 tier of kicker on top.
Vault deployment fee, paid in SUEDE
Artists pay a flat 100 SUEDE fee at vault creation. Refunded as a bonus on successful close. Burned on default.
Perpetual demand source as more artists onboard. Small deflationary kicker on underperformers.
Default recovery routes 20% to treasury buyback
When a shortfall fires and locked SUEDE is sold to recover for investors, 20% of the proceeds route to treasury buyback-and-burn instead of hitting the market.
Investors still recover from the remaining 80%. Bad outcomes get partially absorbed into deflation.
Default and shortfall
For finite-term vaults: if at 75% of term investors have collectively received less than 0.5× their principal, an automatic shortfall trigger fires. Locked SUEDE is sold via DEX (or distributed in-kind, configurable) and the proceeds route pro-rata to investors as partial recovery. One-time event.
For perpetuity vaults: no auto-recovery. Investors hold the position indefinitely; the artist's locked SUEDE only releases on the 24-month floor or when investors collectively pass 1× return.