Since the beginning of 2026, several liquidity pools with considerable yield potential have emerged within the Berachain ecosystem. Among them, Prime Vaults' recently launched Pre-deposit program has performed particularly well, becoming one of the most attractive protocols in terms of current returns. Although overall yields have declined somewhat due to the continuous rise in TVL, the APY of its PrimeUSD pool remains at approximately 23% (supporting staking of various stablecoins), while the APY of the PrimeBERA pool is as high as 118%, still placing it among the top yield tiers in the current DeFi market.
In addition to the pools mentioned above, Prime Vaults also supports staking of BTC and ETH. The corresponding PrimeBTC and PrimeETH pools currently have APRs of 5.87% and 9.22% respectively, which are in the upper-middle range of the industry, balancing stability and returns.
Focusing on the Prime Vaults protocol itself, it is primarily positioned as a smart strategy yield farming protocol, aiming to solve the pain points of traditional DeFi vaults, such as high risk, reliance on short-term incentives, and asset silos, to provide a more stable and sustainable yield solution and offer users a user-friendly, one-click yield method, thus simplifying the complexity of participating in DeFi.
A unified revenue structure centered on "On-chain savings accounts"
Focusing on the product itself, Prime Vaults is based on the core concept of an "on-chain savings account," aiming to provide users with sustainable passive returns while ensuring principal safety and a minimum level of returns. Unlike the siloed asset structure common in traditional DeFi Vaults, Prime Vaults adopts a unified architecture for centralized management and allocation of funds, significantly improving capital allocation efficiency and overall risk control capabilities.
Its core innovation lies in the unified revenue model.
Under this model, various assets deposited by users (such as USDC, WETH, WBTC, WBERA, etc.) are not bound to a single strategy or asset pool, but are instead aggregated into a shared liquidity pool. The system then dynamically allocates these assets to a combination of risk-adjusted strategies based on real-time returns and risk conditions. This design allows funds to "smartly flow" between different assets and strategies, capturing better return opportunities without sacrificing security.
The unified yield model itself also supports cross-chain and multi-strategy parallel operation. Prime Vaults can allocate funds across different chains and protocols, deploying liquidity to the most yield-efficient scenarios while executing multiple strategies such as lending and liquidity provision in parallel. This approach not only reduces the friction costs caused by frequent internal swaps but also reduces liquidity fragmentation, resulting in a smoother and more stable overall yield distribution.
Its revenue does not rely on a single incentive mechanism, but is composed of multiple factors such as base interest rate, strategy returns and cross-chain opportunities. Ultimately, it is settled and distributed to users in a unified manner, which structurally reduces the risk of large fluctuations in returns.
Let's take the yield path of WBERA and stablecoins on Prime Vaults in Berachian as an example:
The high-yield generation logic of WBERA deposits (PrimeBERA)
Within the Berachain ecosystem, the high yield potential of Prime Vaults is most typically demonstrated in native asset pools like PrimeBERA.
Taking a user depositing 1,000 WBERA into the PrimeBERA Vault as an example, these funds will not be simply used for single BERA staking or liquidity mining. Instead, they will first enter the unified liquidity pool of Prime Vaults, participating in cross-strategy scheduling along with assets such as ETH and BTC. Based on this, the system will prioritize deploying the funds to whitelisted Reward Vaults and high-efficiency strategies within the Berachain ecosystem.
The core revenue stream in this pathway comes from Berachain's Proof-of-Live (PoL) mechanism. As is well known, PoL itself does not directly reward trading or staking activities, but rather incentivizes liquidity contributions to network security and ecosystem activity through the governance token BGT.
As a protocol-level participant, Prime Vaults can deploy liquidity from the unified pool to designated Reward Vaults (such as BERA staking or BERA-related LPs) and receive approximately 33% incentive redirection from validator BGT emissions. This portion of BGT is not directly exposed to users but is converted into WBERA through an auction mechanism and automatically reinvested into users' shares, thus creating continuous compound interest.
In addition, the system will route some WBERA liquidity to LP pairs with higher APY on Berachain (such as the BERA/USDC pool), thereby gaining both transaction fees and PoL subsidies. If local opportunities on Berachain decline in a short period, funds may temporarily flow to lending or yield strategies on other chains such as Arbitrum, provided that the risks are manageable, but the overall management will still use the Berachain ecosystem as the yield anchor.
In the early stages of the current pre-deposit phase, due to the small TVL size and relatively fixed PoL incentive pool, PrimeBERA's APR (Average Revenue Per Transaction) amplified to approximately 118%. About 80-100% of the returns came directly from BGT emissions, with the remainder contributed by the base interest rate, transaction fees, and cross-chain strategies. All returns are settled uniformly after the system's periodic harvest and automatically added to the user's net worth, requiring no manual claim. It's important to note that this high APR is essentially a result of the amplified early incentives. As TVL grows, the return level will gradually return to a more sustainable range, but its long-term supporting logic still stems from the systemic incentive mechanism of PoL.
The logic behind generating stable returns on USDC deposits (PrimeUSD)
Compared to the high volatility and yield path of native assets, PrimeUSD better demonstrates the structural advantages of Prime Vaults in the stablecoin scenario. For example, when a user deposits 1,000 USDC into a PrimeUSD Vault, these funds first enter a unified liquidity pool, rather than being restricted to a single USDC strategy. The system prioritizes deploying USDC to the lending market within the Berachain ecosystem to obtain stable base interest rate returns, typically aligned with the supply rate range of mainstream lending protocols (approximately 5–10%).
Building upon this foundation, Prime Vaults will further leverage Berachain's Proof-of-License (PoL) mechanism to "add another layer of leverage" to stablecoin yields. By channeling USDC liquidity to stablecoin pools or related Reward Vaults that meet PoL incentive criteria, the protocol can receive additional BGT subsidies. This allows USDC to participate indirectly in Berachain's liquidity security and governance incentive system, rather than simply passively earning lending interest. As the Berachain RWA ecosystem matures, this path may also be supplemented with additional revenue streams from off-chain cash flow mapping onto on-chain.
Furthermore, the unified yield model allows the system to combine a portion of USDC with ETH or BTC, under controlled risk, to participate in multi-asset driven strategies (such as a stablecoin + volatile asset LP structure), thereby earning transaction fees and incentive rewards. Unlike traditional stablecoin Vaults, which can only "use USDC strategies with USDC," Prime Vaults improves the overall efficiency of unit capital through cross-asset collaboration.
At its current stage, PrimeUSD's APY is approximately 23%, with about 10% coming from the base lending rate and the remainder contributed by PoL incentives, cross-asset strategies, and cross-chain optimizations. Returns and principal are clearly separated within the system, with principal protection prioritized, while returns are settled periodically and can be withdrawn flexibly. Compared to traditional Vaults (such as models that rely solely on returns from a single asset or derivative), Prime Vaults, through a multi-source, low-correlation return structure, make stablecoin returns more resilient in volatile environments.
Risk Management System
While building a robust return system, Prime Vaults explicitly prioritizes "security first" as the underlying principle of its product design.
The system uses a multi-layered mechanism to buffer and constrain common risks in DeFi, rather than simply pursuing a high APY.
To protect asset security, the agreement clearly distinguishes user assets into two parts: principal and returns. The principal will only be deployed to strictly screened strategies and will be absorbed by the IL Reserve Fund (non-permanent loss reserve fund) to absorb the impact of strategy fluctuations, IL, or adverse events, and to protect the integrity of the principal as much as possible in normal market conditions.
Meanwhile, Prime Vaults has established a minimum return guarantee mechanism for different assets, with its benchmark referencing the deposit interest rate level of mainstream lending protocols (such as Aave V3). Even in the event of incentive decay or market weakness, users' returns will not fall below the industry benchmark, thus avoiding the typical Vault risk of "high returns - high falls". The size and use of the reserve fund are dynamically managed by the system to ensure that the overall solvency of the protocol is maintained while bearing risks.
Building on this, Prime Vaults further introduces several system-level safeguards, including a circuit breaker mechanism that automatically triggers under extreme market conditions, and a protocol health index for real-time monitoring of fund exposure and solvency. All key data can be verified through On-chain Proof of Reserves (https://app.primevaults.finance/proof-of-reserves), ensuring transparency regarding fund deployment paths, asset locations, and protocol backing.
Based on this system, Prime Vaults is positioned more like a verifiable, composable on-chain savings account than a traditional high-risk, high-return vault. This mechanism, based on structured risk control and a unified return model, makes it more suitable for users who want stable returns but do not want to frequently monitor the market and adjust their strategies, which constitutes its core differentiation in the current DeFi market.
Potential incentive points
Currently, when we participate in their Pre-deposit program, we see a Boosted Points section, which means that participating in the deposit will earn us points rewards, and we can see our specific points details in their Prime Points section.
For users familiar with the Berachain ecosystem, this is a familiar formula. Considering Prime Vaults is a recently launched project with healthy growth momentum, its points system is likely to serve as a key reference for user incentives and rewards distribution at crucial junctures in 2026 (such as TGE), potentially leading to airdrops. Therefore, for Berachain users who missed out on earlier opportunities like Infrared Finance or Kodiak, Prime Vaults may offer a new and multifaceted opportunity to participate at this stage.
