RIADeFi
Refusal file · other

Why Ketju rejected Exponent Yield Exchange

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 Superseded versions are recorded, never edited away.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 EXCLUSION AND AN UNDISCLOSED JURISDICTION. Exponent splits yield-bearing Solana assets into Principal Tokens and Yield Tokens, functionally identical to Pendle's yield-stripping design, with a genuinely substantial security investment: 23 audits claimed across five firms and an active bug bounty paying up to $300,000. But Exponent Labs' Terms of Use place the United States on an explicit prohibited-jurisdiction list alongside the UK and standard sanctioned countries, with VPN circumvention expressly barred — a direct disqualification for this registry's client base. Independent of that access bar, the Terms name no actual incorporation jurisdiction for Exponent Labs beyond a generic reference to "the jurisdiction where Exponent Labs is legally registered," no governance token or DAO layer was found, and an unexplained roughly 40% two-day TVL decline in July 2025 has no public incident report accounting for it.

What would reopen the file

  • A US-eligible offering opens to this registry's target client population
  • Exponent Labs' incorporation jurisdiction is named and confirmed
  • The cause of the July 2025 roughly 40% two-day TVL decline is identified and confirmed
  • The oracle or pricing mechanism behind PT/YT rate discovery is disclosed

Facts on file

Verdict
Rejected
Exposure
other
Chains examined
Solana
Memo version
v1
Reviewed
Next review

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