Risk
Market hours & oracles
The single biggest difference between equity collateral and crypto collateral: the underlying stops trading, and prices gap when it reopens.
The protocol runs 24 hours a day. The stock market does not. Everything on this page follows from that mismatch.
The problem#
Crypto collateral trades continuously. If ETH falls 20%, it does so through every price in between, and liquidators have the whole way down to act.
An equity does not. It closes at 4pm, an earnings miss lands at 4:05, and it reopens 17 hours later 18% lower — with no trades in between. No liquidator could have acted, because there was no price at which to act. That gap is where bad debt comes from.
This is the risk that ends lending protocols
A single overnight gap that exceeds the liquidation buffer turns a healthy position into an undercollateralised one instantly, with no opportunity to intervene. Everything below exists to make sure the buffer is wide enough when that gap is possible.
Market-Hours Risk Mode#
The protocol knows what time it is in New York. LTV and borrow caps tighten as the distance to the next real print grows.
| Session | Hours (ET) | LTV haircut | Borrow cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Market open | 09:30 – 16:00 | ×1.00 | 100% |
| Pre-market | 04:00 – 09:30 | ×0.94 | 75% |
| After-hours | 16:00 – 20:00 | ×0.92 | 60% |
| Overnight closed | 20:00 – 04:00 | ×0.88 | 40% |
| Weekend | Fri 20:00 – Mon 04:00 | ×0.82 | 25% |
$100,000 SPYon, the same position at different times
Tuesday 11:00 ET — market open
65% LTV, no haircut
Tuesday 18:00 ET — after-hours
×0.92
Wednesday 02:00 ET — overnight
×0.88
Saturday — weekend
×0.82
If you need the full limit, draw it while the market is open. The haircut reverses automatically when trading resumes.
It does not touch an existing position
Your health factor is unaffected by the clock
The haircut applies to new borrowing power, not to liquidation thresholds. Closing time does not make an existing position less healthy, does not trigger deleveraging, and cannot cause a liquidation on its own. If you borrowed $60,000 while the market was open, nothing is asked of you when it closes.
Oracles#
Every price comes from a Chainlink feed on Robinhood Chain. Each feed has a heartbeat — the maximum time it may go without an update — and a deviation threshold that forces an early update when the price moves enough.
| Asset class | Heartbeat | Deviation |
|---|---|---|
| Broad-market ETF | 3600s | 0.50% |
| Mega-cap | 1800s | 0.50% |
| Volatile tech | 900s | 0.25% |
Freshness states
- Fresh — under 60% of the heartbeat has elapsed. Everything works normally.
- Aging — between 60% and 100%. Still usable, flagged in the interface so you can see it.
- Stale — past the heartbeat. New borrows against that asset are frozen.
A stale feed never traps you
When a feed goes stale, borrowing stops but repayment, collateral top-ups and self-liquidation all stay open. A protocol that freezes your ability to reduce risk during a data outage is a protocol that liquidates you for its own failure. That path stays live no matter what.
Circuit breaker#
If a price moves beyond the asset’s deviation band inside a single block, liquidations for that asset halt until two independent updates agree on the new level.
The reason is simple: a bad print should not become a real liquidation. A momentarily wrong oracle value could otherwise let keepers seize collateral at a price that never existed, and the user would have no recourse. Pausing costs the protocol a few blocks of liquidation delay and saves users from an unrecoverable error.
What this means for you in practice#
- Draw during market hours. That is when your limit is largest.
- Do not plan around the maximum weekend limit. If you need cash on a Saturday, make sure you drew it on Friday.
- Leave extra room before long weekends and holidays. Three-day closures carry three days of unpriceable news.
- Watch the badge. The app shows the current session and active haircut in the top bar at all times.
See the current session and oracle status
The risk centre shows the live haircut, time until the next session change, and the freshness of every feed.
Next: the rest of the guardrails.