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User Journey

Concrete is designed to help users optimize yield generation and borrowing strategies from the moment they deposit assets. But how your dollar works on Day One and how it evolves by Day 500 reflects the growing complexity and opportunities within the ecosystem.

Day One: Laying the Foundation for Yield and Security​

1. Deposit into a 4626 Vault​

On Day One, your journey starts when you deposit an asset (e.g., ETH, BTC, USDC) into a 4626 vault. This vault is a specialized structure designed to streamline investment processes while ensuring compatibility with other protocols. You don’t need to take any action beyond depositing—the system is built to automate the most efficient strategies.

2. Passive Yield Generation​

Once your asset is in the vault, Concrete employs sophisticated strategies to seek the best yield opportunities available in various crypto markets. For example, your funds might be allocated to money markets like Aave or Compound, where the protocol identifies the highest risk-adjusted returns. The entire process is handled seamlessly by Concrete’s backend, eliminating the need for you to manually move assets around or keep track of yield rates across different platforms.

Over time, your assets accrue yield. Concrete allows you to periodically claim the rewards generated from the automated strategies. The yield from your assets can be used to automatically pay off the interest on your loan, leaving users to profit from the remaining yield while maintaining liquidity.

3. Borrowing Against Your Assets​

Even on Day One, you can borrow against your deposited assets without withdrawing them. By issuing receipt tokens, Concrete allows you to use them as collateral to obtain liquidity at competitive rates. The process minimizes risk through features like Loan Protect, which safeguards against liquidation if market conditions turn unfavorable.

For example, when you deposit ETH, you receive a Concrete ETH receipt token. This receipt acts as collateral that you can borrow against within the Concrete ecosystem.

4. Simple Fee Structure​

On the first day, you begin incurring standard fees like:

  • Yield fees (a small percentage of profits, typically around 2%)
  • Borrowing interest rates (e.g., 7%)
  • Optional Loan Protect fees (e.g., 0.3% for liquidation protection).

Day 500: A Growing Set of Opportunities​

By Day 500, your dollar has evolved within a more complex and dynamic ecosystem. The platform has expanded its offerings, and you can now take advantage of additional tools that were unavailable on Day One.

1. Advanced Yield Strategies​

Beyond the simple money market yields from Day One, by Day 500, Concrete offers more sophisticated strategies. These may include community-driven vaults created by users who specialize in advanced yield tactics or leveraged yield strategies that can potentially generate higher returns (though they may come with higher risk).

These strategies offer more lucrative returns compared to the passive methods of Day One, but they require more liquidity or involve more complex risk management.

2. Cross-Chain Asset Management​

As the platform matures, cross-chain functionality becomes available. Concrete allows users to not only borrow stablecoins like USDT but also to borrow across different chains and assets. By Day 500, users can interact with assets on one chain (e.g., Ethereum) and borrow or manage liquidity on another (e.g., Avalanche), creating cross-chain liquidity management capabilities.

3. Swapping Assets Within Concrete​

A built-in asset swap feature. This enables you to shift your holdings from one asset to another (e.g., swapping ETH for BTC) without leaving the platform.

4. Integration with Community-Driven Money Markets​

Community-built money markets will offer higher yield opportunities but might involve greater risks or liquidity challenges. Additionally, Ecosystem ETFs—diversified portfolios spread across multiple protocols—allow for more balanced yet optimized strategies for returns.

The system has evolved into a decentralized competition market, where users can create vaults with their own strategies, and Concrete can select the best ones to integrate into the platform.

5. Automatic Rebalancing and Debt Servicing​

Concrete integrates automated debt servicing, using the yield generated from the assets you’ve deposited to cover borrowing costs. This ensures that users never have to worry about manually managing their loan repayments. The yield from your assets can be used to automatically pay off the interest on your loan, leaving users to profit from the remaining yield while maintaining liquidity.

How Concrete Makes Money​

Yield Fees​

For each yield-generating strategy that Concrete executes on your behalf, a small percentage of the profits (typically around 2%) is paid to the protocol as a service fee. This incentivizes Concrete to consistently find the most efficient yield-generating opportunities for its users.

Borrowing Fees​

When you borrow against your assets, Concrete charges an interest rate (e.g., 7%) on the loan. This interest helps fuel the protocol’s revenue while ensuring that your assets remain productive in generating yield.

Liquidation Protection Fees​

For users opting into Concrete’s Loan Protect, an additional fee is charged (e.g., 0.3% of the loan). This service protects users from costly liquidations by managing their loan-to-value ratios with emergency credits, keeping their position safe from market volatility.

Example Journey​

Imagine you deposit 1 ETH into Concrete on Day One. Concrete immediately places your ETH into its vaults, actively seeking the highest risk-adjusted returns through lending protocols like Aave** or Compound. You earn passive yield on your deposit, and Concrete handles all the research and market movements.

A few days later, you decide to borrow 500 USDT against your deposited ETH. Concrete issues you a Concrete ETH (ctETH) token, which you can use as collateral to borrow stablecoins. Thanks to Loan Protect, you don’t have to worry about market volatility liquidating your position—Concrete monitors and adjusts it for you, offering multi-level liquidation protection.

Over time, as your assets accrue yield and the market evolves, Concrete’s automated debt servicing system uses a portion of your yield to cover the interest on your USDT loan, leaving you to profit from the remaining yield without any manual intervention.

By Day 500, you’ve accumulated more ETH in returns and have options to diversify your investments through cross-chain liquidity management or move your assets to another protocol through Concrete’s built-in asset swap feature. Additionally, you could explore higher-risk, community-driven yield strategies to potentially boost your returns even further.

Throughout the process, Concrete handles everything—from rebalancing your assets to paying off your loan—while ensuring that your collateral is safe and optimally managed.