Protocol papers
Credit and stable-value papers.
A vault with collateral is a different object from an arbitrage against the system's own token. The shelf says which is which.
How to read this shelf
Each card opens a study. The study is a reading of a public paper, not the paper and not a description of today's network. Status is a design paper unless the record says historical or failure case.
How to read this page
Research status is named on the page. Primary sources are linked. This is a mechanism and operating note, not investment suitability, legal advice, a security guarantee or an implementation certificate.
Compound · 2019 · Design paper
Compound: The Money Market Protocol
The 2019 Compound paper: pooled lending markets where suppliers earn a floating rate and borrowers post collateral. Interest rates are a function of utilisation, set in the protocol rather than negotiated bilaterally.
Aave · 2020 · Design paper
Aave Protocol white paper
Aave's v1 protocol paper: pooled lending with stable and variable rates, and loan features such as rate switching and uncollateralised flash loans inside a single transaction. It sits in the same family as Compound, with a different rate and product surface.
Maker · 2017 · Design paper
The Dai Stablecoin System
MakerDAO's 2017 description of Dai: a liability minted against overcollateralised vaults, kept near a dollar target by fees, a collateral auction, and an emergency shutdown. It is the reference design for crypto-collateralised stable value, as distinct from a fiat-backed token.
Terra · 2019 · Failure case
Terra Money: Stability and Adoption
Do Kwon's 2019 paper for a family of fiat-pegged tokens stabilised by an arbitrage relationship with a second, volatile token. It is included because it is a canonical design paper that was not in the historic library. It is included as a failure case, not as a model to ship.
Liquity · 2021 · Design paper
Liquity: Decentralized Borrowing
Borrow a stable-value token against ether, with a one-time fee instead of an interest rate. Troves are liquidated into a stability pool. Redemptions let the token be swapped for the collateral of the weakest trove. The paper does not promise a peg.
crvUSD design · 2022 · Design paper
Curve stablecoin design
A stablecoin lent against volatile collateral, where liquidation is a continuous trade into a special pool rather than a one-shot auction. The paper calls that pool LLAMMA. A peg keeper and a monetary-policy rate sit beside it. Simulations in the paper are not a promise about later losses.
b-money · 1998 · Design paper
b-money
Participants broadcast contract offers. Money is created by solving a computational problem, and a collective bookkeeping system tracks balances. A second variant uses a subset of servers.
Morpho · 2023 · Design paper
Morpho Blue: Permissionless Lending
Morpho Blue isolates a market to one loan asset, one collateral asset, one oracle, one LLTV and one rate model. Risk does not cross markets inside the core.
ERC-4626 · 2022 · Design paper
Tokenized Vault Standard
A tokenised vault has deposit, mint, withdraw and redeem, and a defined conversion between the asset and the share. The share is an ERC-20.
Flash loans · 2020 · Design paper
ERC-3156: Flash Loans
A flash lender sends assets to a receiver and requires that the same transaction returns them, plus a fee. If it does not, the transaction reverts. There is no default in the credit sense, because there is no time.
BIP 137 · 2019 · Design paper
Signatures of Messages using Private Keys
BIP 137, Signatures of Messages using Private Keys. This document describes a signature format for signing messages with Bitcoin private keys.
ERC 6059 · 2022 · Design paper
Parent-Governed Nestable Non-Fungible Tokens
ERC 6059, Parent-Governed Nestable Non-Fungible Tokens. The Parent-Governed Nestable NFT standard extends ERC-721 by allowing for a new inter-NFT relationship and interaction.
ERC 6147 · 2022 · Design paper
Guard of NFT/SBT, an Extension of ERC-721
ERC 6147, Guard of NFT/SBT, an Extension of ERC-721. It separates the holding right and transfer right of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Soulbound Tokens (SBTs) and defines a new role, guard with expires.
ERC 7291 · 2023 · Design paper
Purpose bound money
ERC 7291, Purpose bound money. A Purpose Bound Money (PBM) token is a wrapper around an ERC-1155 token that can be used for a limited activity.
ERC 7528 · 2023 · Design paper
ETH (Native Asset) Address Convention
ERC 7528, ETH (Native Asset) Address Convention. The following standard proposes a convention for using the address 0xeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee in all contexts where an address is used to represent ETH in the same capacity as an ERC-20 token.
ERC 7535 · 2023 · Design paper
Native Asset ERC-4626 Tokenized Vault
ERC 7535, Native Asset ERC-4626 Tokenized Vault. This standard is an extension of the ERC-4626 spec with an identical interface and behavioral overrides for handling Ether or any native asset as the underlying.
ERC 7540 · 2023 · Design paper
Asynchronous ERC-4626 Tokenized Vaults
ERC 7540, Asynchronous ERC-4626 Tokenized Vaults. The following standard extends ERC-4626 by adding support for asynchronous deposit and redemption flows.
ERC 7575 · 2023 · Design paper
Multi-Asset ERC-4626 Vaults
ERC 7575, Multi-Asset ERC-4626 Vaults. The following standard adapts ERC-4626 to support multiple assets or entry points for the same share token.
ERC 8161 · 2025 · Design paper
Transferable Tokenized Vault Requests
ERC 8161, Transferable Tokenized Vault Requests. This standard extends ERC-7540 by adding optional transferability of pending deposit and redeem Requests.