RIADeFi
Refusal file · other

Why Ketju rejected BounceBit CeDeFi Yield

Memo v1Published by Ketju Research

A registry memo, published verbatim and versioned. Superseded versions are recorded, never edited away. A rejection is a judgment for Ketju's client base and thesis, not a universal safety claim. Not investment, legal, tax, or compliance advice.

The memo

REJECTED ON AN EXPLICIT US-PERSON EXCLUSION AND A MISLEADING RISK LABEL. BounceBit markets itself as Bitcoin restaking, but the actual mechanism is CeFi custody plus delta-neutral basis trading: deposited BTC and stablecoins leave the user's control entirely into Ceffu's custody, are mirrored (not deposited) to exchanges for funding-rate arbitrage run by named third-party asset managers, and a rebasing on-chain token represents the resulting claim. That is a fundamentally different, more centralized risk than Babylon Protocol's non-custodial Bitcoin-script staking, already researched and rejected elsewhere in this registry — BounceBit's "restaking" framing should not be taken at face value. Independent of that mechanism question, BounceBit Ltd's own Terms of Use explicitly and by name exclude the United States from its list of Restricted Territories, a direct disqualification for this registry's client base. Redemption is also gated on hedge-fund terms: a 28-day hard lockup after initial subscription, followed by weekly batch redemption every Thursday — materially slower than typical DeFi exit mechanics.

What would reopen the file

  • A US-eligible offering opens to this registry's target client population
  • Ceffu's specific custodian or VASP regulatory license is disclosed and confirmed
  • The BVI investment business license claim is independently verified against a public registry
  • Marketing materials stop describing the CeFi custody-and-basis-trade mechanism as "restaking"

Facts on file

Verdict
Rejected
Exposure
other
Chains examined
BounceBit, BSC, Ethereum, Solana, Base
Memo version
v1
Reviewed
Next review

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