FAQs

What is Pipeline?

Pipeline is a decentralized commodity trade finance protocol. Lenders deposit USDC and earn from senior lending to finance commodity trades — high yield, short duration, secured by physical cargo, self-liquidating, tracked on a public on-chain registry.

• Deal-by-deal underwriting, not balance sheet financing.
• Up to 30% first-loss equity on every facility.
• Not a fund, not a yield aggregator.

Where does the yield come from?

Two sources.

• Senior coupons on commodity trade loans, paid by offtakers when cargo is delivered.
• Realised T-bill yield on non-deployed USDC reserves held as USYC.

No token emissions, no perpetual funding, no rehypothecation.

What is the origin of the commodity trade flow?

Pipeline onboards Loan Originators — established lenders in commodity trade finance with their own underwriting and borrower networks. Pipeline does not originate directly. Each Originator contributes an equity tranche on every deal. Inaugural Originator: Open Mineral AG (Mubadala-backed, ex-Glencore principals).

How can I start earning yield?

1. Connect a self-custodied wallet (e.g., MetaMask or Rabby).
2. Call DepositManager.deposit(amount) with at least $1,000 USDC. Funds park in the Intake Wallet.
3. KYT screening runs off-chain. On a clean result, call claim(depositId, attestation, signature) to enrol on the whitelist and mint PLUSD 1:1 in the same transaction.
4. Stake PLUSD into the PLUSD staking vault and receive sPLUSD.
5. Yield accrues to sPLUSD — no claim step. Full walkthrough in Quick start manual.

How is my senior capital protected?

Two independent layers protect the senior tranche: economic cushion in the deal structure and architectural safeguards in the operational stack.

Credit protection (deal structure):

• LTV haircut. An 80% average advance rate provides 20% overcollateralization.
• Equity tranche. Subordinated capital absorbs first loss (up to 30% of each facility).
• Pro-rata terminal mode. If the cushion is breached, senior holders receive an identical recovery rate.

Operational protection (technical architecture):

• Institutional custody (BitGo). No smart contract holds lender USDC principal.
• Split-rail architecture. Hardware circuit breaker cuts custody in any emergency or smart contract bug.
• On-chain transparency. All protocol actions are recorded on-chain and independently verifiable.

What are PLUSD and sPLUSD?

PLUSD is the dollar receipt — an ERC-20 token, minted 1:1 against deposited USDC, freely transferable, no yield.

sPLUSD is the yield-bearing share of an ERC-4626 vault for PLUSD staking. sPLUSD price rises as the vault accrues senior coupons from commodity trades and T-bill yield mints in.

How fast can I withdraw?

Unstake any time — no lock-up. Submit a withdrawal request, claim USDC yourself once the queue is funded. Routine sizes settle same-day. Large requests may wait for the Trustee to top up the Withdrawal Queue Wallet from reserves.

How is risk managed?

All loans pass the protocol’s Credit Policy gates before approval. Pipeline finances only:

• Eligible commodities (non-perishable, high commoditisation, deep liquidity)
• Pre-approved trading corridors
• Deal structures with ultimate collateral control
• Trade parties meeting strict compliance, financial and operational standards

Live loans are narrowly monitored — independent inspections at every trade milestone, independent collateral managers, independent price oracles, CTRM vessel feeds, sanctions screening across all counterparties.

Risk committee reviews concentration weekly and approves every facility.

Asset-class default rate is below 0.3%.

What legal structure underpins Pipeline?

A purpose trust sits at the centre of the structure, governed by a trust deed that recognises on-chain protocol actions as legally binding. Each financed trade is held in its own sub-trust, isolating its collateral from every other trade.

A fiduciary trustee is the regulated party authorised to move capital, acting only on authenticated on-chain instructions consistent with the trust deed. Two operating entities sit alongside the trust:

• The Trust Company (Cayman) — the regulated trustee managing funds and legal title to collateral on behalf of their beneficiaries.
• Trade Company (Cayman SPC) — the operating counterparty that structures each physical trade in a bankruptcy-remote cell and posts collateral into the sub-trusts.

This separation means the entity doing the trades is distinct from the entity holding the collateral, and neither can unilaterally access senior capital.

What jurisdictions can Pipeline serve?

On the lender side, the protocol is available for whitelisted entities and individuals from non-sanctioned jurisdictions, non-US. Wallets on OFAC or equivalent sanctions lists cannot be served.

On the borrower side, Pipeline tiers loan jurisdictions by enforcement reliability and prohibits lending to sanctioned jurisdictions (OFAC/EU/UN/UK), those without functioning warehouse receipt law, with USD-blocking capital controls (except carve-outs, currently Mainland PRC), or in active armed conflict.