Assayhold
Assayhold
An assay office for onchain collateral
Lending protocols take your deposit and hand you a number. An assay office works the other way round: the metal is tested, the fineness is written on a ticket, the ticket is punched — and only what the test supports is ever lent against.
The day's assay
Fineness is the share of an asset the office will stand behind after its own test: depth, age of the venue, how it behaved the last time the market went thin. Every row is a worked example of the format, not a live market.
| Metal | Fineness | Lends to | Cupel at | Office rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Native assetdeepest book, tested daily | 0.920 | 78% | 86% | 3.1% |
| Major stableredeemable, audited issuer | 0.970 | 88% | 93% | 5.4% |
| Liquid staking receiptcarries an unstake queue | 0.840 | 70% | 80% | 3.8% |
| Blue-chip pool sharetwo-sided, fee bearing | 0.710 | 55% | 68% | 6.2% |
| Thin-book tokenfails the test on depth | 0.280 | — | — | not held |
The fire does not negotiate, and neither does the sheet. What survives the cupel is what the office will stand behind — nothing above it.
The sequence
Nothing is weighed before it is tested. The stone comes first, every time.
01 — test it
The deposit is drawn across the stone and read against the morning sheet: depth, venue, behaviour under stress. What fails the test is handed straight back rather than held at a flattering number.
02 — hold it
Hallmarked metal goes in and credit is drawn against its fineness, never against its headline price. Custody is a contract you control; the office holds no key of its own.
03 — burn off the rest
If a ticket drifts past its cupel mark, the position is fired down to the metal that is actually there. Public, rule-driven, printed on the ticket from the day it is written — nobody finds out what theirs was during a bad hour.
The touchstone
An assayer does not guess. Metal is drawn across a black stone, the streak compared against known needles, and the fineness read off the mark it leaves. The bench does the same with a deposit — pick a metal, set an amount, read what the office will stand behind.
None of it is a quote, a rate offer or a promise. It is the arithmetic of the sheet, run in front of you so there is nothing to take on faith.
Sample needles · preview figures
Sample needles so the bench can be read. Live needles are posted on the morning sheet once the contracts are published.
Hallmark registry
Four marks go on each ticket: the metal, the office, the fineness, and the date letter. Nothing in the strongroom is held under a number only the office can read.
Notes from the office
Note · one
The site is live; the contracts are not published yet. Every figure here is a sample and is labelled as one.
Note · two
Yes. A ticket is a position in a contract you control. Depositing, drawing and closing are your transactions, signed by your wallet.
Note · three
The spread between what borrowers pay and what depositors are paid, published on the same sheet as everything else. No emissions, no points.
Note · four
The test does, from depth and venue data, posted before the day opens — not quietly adjusted after a position is already in trouble.
Note · five
Of course. Fineness measures how much of the headline the office will stand behind; it is not a floor and is never presented as one.
Note · six
Counters open in rounds. Leave an address and you are called when your round comes up.
Early access
Rounds are called oldest first. No tier, no allocation, nothing to buy your way up.