Bankless

What's Next for Vaults? | Steakhouse Co-Founder, Adrian Cachinero

1h 5min

Steakhouse co-founder Adrian Cachinero explains the vault landscape, emphasizing that vaults are as versatile as tokens—ranging from simple liquidity aggregators to complex, trust-minimized structures. He details how vaults, especially those built on isolated lending markets like Morpho, aim to improve market efficiency and investor protections without relying on intermediaries. The conversation also covers the long-term growth of ‘boring’ repo markets, the need for cryptographic enforcement over social promises, and how regulation and AI will shape the vault industry.

Summarized by Podsumo

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✨ Key Takeaways

1

Vaults are a broad category, similar to tokens, encompassing everything from simple aggregated liquidity to complex discretionary funds. Steakhouse focuses on minimal-risk structures with strong investor protections, using vaults built on Morpho’s isolated lending markets.
2

The biggest opportunity lies in bringing traditional repo markets on-chain—a trillion-dollar activity—to make them more transparent and efficient, instead of just chasing high-yield, high-risk strategies like point farming.
3

There is a principal-agent gap between curators and depositors: curators take performance fees but don’t lose principal if the vault fails. Steakhouse addresses this by committing its own treasury to vaults and seeking cryptographic enforcement of slashing rather than relying on social promises.
4

Regulatory clarity is needed: vault activities can resemble asset management, but true innovation lies in using blockchain’s cryptographic guarantees to enforce investor protections better than traditional disclosure regimes. Steakhouse is open to registering with the SEC if needed.
5

AI is accelerating vault operations but will not replace human curation—just as radiologists remain responsible for AI-assisted diagnoses. Steakhouse uses AI to scale team capabilities while maintaining human oversight.

💬 Notable Quotes

"“The idea that you can intermediate a value exchange without an intermediary or without relinquishing custody… is quite new for finance.” — Adrian Cachinero"
"“To the degree that a vault enables this, it is bullish because it represents a more efficient market and one with better investor protections.” — Adrian Cachinero"
"“If a user only cares about yield and not risk, the curator will just onboard more shitcoin and eventually explode. I’m hopeful this era is behind us.” — Adrian Cachinero"