Background
Wintermute is a global leading algorithmic trading firm in digital assets. Founded in 2017, we have operated through multiple market cycles, consistently providing liquidity across both centralized and decentralized venues. Today Wintermute trades over $10 billion in daily volume across 70+ venues.
Our DeFi roots run deep. We were among the earliest institutional participants on platforms like dYdX and have long been active liquidity providers across onchain venues. We co-incubated Wildcat Protocol, a decentralized onchain credit facility built specifically for institutional borrowers, as a reflection of our conviction that transparent, onchain credit is foundational to a more efficient DeFi ecosystem.
Armitage by Wintermute vaults represent our first foray into structured vault curation, starting with Morpho. Our vaults serve that same role: a structured product layer that brings Wintermute's trading expertise and onchain credit activity directly to passive depositors.
What Armitage does
Armitage operates as a vault curator. We provide the infrastructure, expertise, and operational rigor required to deploy and maintain DeFi vaults at institutional standards.
The vaults are permissionless and non-custodial. Anyone can deposit or withdraw without our approval, and depositors retain full custody through the underlying protocol's smart contracts.
As a curator, we handle:
- Selecting which strategies a vault allocates to
- Rebalancing vault allocations to optimize risk-adjusted returns
- Monitoring vault health and protocol risk continuously
- Applying our risk framework as market conditions evolve
- Ensuring sufficient liquidity for depositor exits
How our vaults work
We're starting with Morpho, where our model works as follows:
- Deposit & Shares
Anyone can deposit into our vaults. Depositors receive tokenized vault shares that accumulate yield as the vault generates returns. - Allocation across markets
Based on the vault tier, we deploy capital across multiple Morpho lending markets. Examples include existing markets with collateral like cbBTC, or newly created with a tokenized loan on Wildcat. - Active rebalancing
We continuously adjust allocations based on changing risk conditions, liquidity depth, and yield opportunities. Our rebalancing is informed by real-time market data from Wintermute's trading operations. - Permissionless exit
Depositors can withdraw at any time, subject to available liquidity in the underlying markets. There are no lock-ups, although during periods of high market utilization, withdrawal liquidity may be temporarily constrained; see the Risks & Monitoring section.
The Armitage philosophy
Vault curation is maturing quickly, with a growing set of curators staking out edges in advisory expertise or TradFi distribution. Armitage occupies a different space entirely because we don't just "score" risk; we manage it through active execution and the synergy with our core business.
Core curation principles
End-to-end risk execution
Wintermute can execute liquidations for every market we support. We do not rely on third-party liquidators to appear when positions need to be unwound. This lets us safely support collateral types that other curators cannot, expanding the yield opportunity set without compromising depositor protection.
Trading-informed risk management
Wintermute processes $10B+ in daily trading volume across 70+ venues. That operational scale gives us direct visibility into market regimes, liquidity conditions, and stress events in real time. Vault allocation and rebalancing decisions are informed by live market data, not solely by onchain metrics.
Institutional credibility with DeFi depth
Wintermute has been a counterparty to major exchanges, protocols, and institutions since 2017. We have operated at scale across both CeFi and DeFi through multiple market cycles. The curator managing depositor capital is a firm that institutions already rely on, with a deep DeFi track record to match.
Multi-chain capability
Wintermute already operates across 10+ chains. We can expand vault curation to new chains as opportunities arise and intend to grow the Armitage Vault offering over time, subject to available yield sources and borrowing demand to provide target APYs to depositors.