Crypto can't go mainstream
until your funds are protected.

Traditional brokerages protect every account with dedicated reserves. No on-chain exchange has ever done the same — until now.

7×
TVL capped at 7× the Protection Fund. We pause deposits before we outgrow our reserves.
$500K
Team capital committed to bootstrap the fund from day one.
25%
Of trading fees flow to the Protection Fund during the build phase.

Two funds. Two different risks.

Most exchanges lump everything into one opaque fund. Gilt separates custody risk from trading risk because they're fundamentally different problems with different funding needs.

Protocol Protection Fund
Covers losses from infrastructure failure: bridge compromise, validator collusion, smart contract exploits, oracle manipulation. This is what no other DEX has.
  • Coverage target200% of max claims
  • Per-account cap$10K – $250K
  • Funded by25% of trading fees
  • Bootstrap$500K team capital
  • Held onEthereum mainnet
  • ClaimsAutomatic trigger
Trading Protection Fund
Covers liquidation deficits — when a trader's position goes negative and margin can't cover it. Without this fund, losses are socialized to profitable traders via ADL.
  • Funded byLiquidation penalties
  • Penalty rate~1% of liquidated notional
  • Seed target$750K (first 6 months)
  • Seed boost5% of fees until target
  • ADL fallbackOnly if fund depleted
  • Self-balancingRevenue tracks need

Every dollar backed before it's accepted.

Gilt enforces a hard cap: total deposits cannot exceed 7× the Protection Fund balance. As the fund grows from trading fees, the cap rises and more deposits are accepted. The fund grows with the platform — protection scales with you.

TVL cap = Protection Fund ÷ 14% ≈ 7× Fund Balance
Fund Balance TVL Cap Max Protected Claims Per-Account Cap
$500K$3.5M$490K$10,000
$5M$35M$4.9M$10,000
$20M$140M$19.6M$50,000
$80M$560M$78.4M$100,000
$250M+$1.75B$245M$250,000
Wait — $250M fund vs $1.75B in deposits?

The fund doesn't need to cover total TVL — it needs to cover the maximum plausible loss from a single event. Bridge defense layers (rate limits, daily caps, circuit breakers) structurally cap the maximum drain at ~20% of TVL. Per-account caps mean only ~70% of that drain is a protected claim.

So at $1.75B TVL: max drain is ~$350M, protected claims are ~$245M, and the fund holds $250M — 102% coverage of worst-case claims. This is how institutional protection funds work: they don't hold reserves equal to every account. They hold enough to cover the maximum realistic failure. See how max loss is capped by design ↓

Per-account caps scale with the fund — each increase is backed by the fund's actual balance, not a marketing decision.

Max loss is capped by design.

The Protection Fund is the last line of defense, not the only one. Five layers of bridge security make a full drain architecturally impossible — while keeping every legitimate withdrawal instant.

Per-Bridge Rate Limiting
Each bridge enforces maximum hourly outflow as a percentage of its balance. Scales automatically with TVL.
Stops rapid drain
Daily Outflow Caps
Catches slow-drain attacks that stay under the hourly limit. Total extraction capped over any 24-hour window.
Stops slow drain
Global Circuit Breaker
Monitors aggregate withdrawals across all seven bridges. Anomalous total outflow pauses every bridge. Multisig to resume.
Stops multi-bridge
Pattern-Based Anomaly Detection
Admin calls trigger instant auto-pause. Coordinated fresh-account withdrawals are blocked. Normal users are never affected.
Stops sybil
Key Isolation Per Chain
Each validator uses a different signing key per chain, derived from HSM. Compromise on one chain doesn't affect any other.
Limits blast radius

Automatic detection. Automatic payout.

Claims trigger automatically when bridge monitoring detects unauthorized outflow. No human approval, no governance vote, no waiting for a team to decide if you deserve your money back.

T + 0
Bridge balance anomaly detected. All bridges auto-pause. Claim process initiates.
T + minutes
Per-account claims calculated. 30% liquid reserve immediately available for payout.
T + 24–72 hours
Yield positions (T-bills, lending) unwound. Remaining claim amounts become available.
T + 1 week
All protected claims settled in full. Adaptive fee allocation re-engages to rebuild the fund.

How this compares.

Gilt Other DEXes Traditional Brokerages
Liquidation deficit coverage Yes (Trading Protection Fund) Yes (standard) N/A
Custody failure coverage Yes (Protocol Protection Fund) No Yes (regulated)
Per-account caps $10K – $250K (scales with fund) None Varies by jurisdiction
TVL acceptance limit 7× fund balance Unlimited Unlimited (gov-backed)
Claim trigger Automatic (on-chain) N/A Broker failure
Claim timeline < 1 week N/A 1–3 months

Trade with protection.

0DTE options, perps, and prediction markets — backed by dedicated protection funds and multi-layer bridge defense.

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