Yield and Economics
All USDREFI yield comes from real-world regenerative lending. There is no leverage, no DeFi composability risk, and no synthetic yield.
Yield Sources
Quipu via Textile (v1 — Launch)
The initial yield source is Quipu, a Colombian AI-powered microcredit originator that has disbursed over 49,400 loans using 80,000+ alternative data points. Capital is deployed through Textile's smart contract infrastructure.
EthicHub (v1 — Phase 2)
EthicHub provides long-duration loans (12–24 months) to smallholder farmers and cooperatives. It generates USD-denominated yield plus upside from EthicHub's ETHIX ecosystem token. EthicHub has an established track record and meets the Credit Curation Framework standards.
Expansion
As new originators pass through the Credit Curation Framework, the USDREFI basket will diversify into regenerative agriculture, renewable energy, micro-enterprise, and similar sectors. Every addition must clear all five gates.
Yield Economics
EthicHub Gross Yield (12-mo)
~10% (8% USD + ~2% ETHIX)
EthicHub Gross Yield (24-mo)
~13% (8% USD + ~5% ETHIX)
User Yield Target
~4% APY in USD (comparable to sDAI/Spark)
Surplus
Retained to build protocol-owned liquidity
Ops & Infra
~$20–25k/year (lean human ops + minimal tooling)
How Yield Reaches You
Yield does not accrue into the USDREFI share price (the exchange rate stays 1:1). Instead, rewards are distributed as a side-stream via Merkl campaigns:
Curated lending sources generate yield monthly
The Foundation Safe receives yield and transfers the reward portion to the Reward Safe
The Reward Safe funds a Merkl campaign with USDREFI + $REFI tokens
Merkl snapshots holder balances and builds a Merkle tree
You claim your pro-rata share on-demand via on-chain proof
This design keeps the vault simple and ERC-4626 compliant while providing transparent, claimable rewards.