Is crypto options vault safe?

DeFi options vault protocols (Aave, Compound) are audited and overcollateralized, making them structurally safer than CeFi lenders. However, all options vault carries smart contract risk, liquidation risk, and rate variability. Never lend more than you can afford to lose.

What are current crypto options vault rates?

As of 2026, DeFi supply rates range from 2.6% to 3.8% APR on major stablecoins, while borrow rates range from 4.9% to 7.1%. CeFi platforms offer higher headline rates but carry additional counterparty risk.

category.options_vaults.label

category.options_vaults.promise

Starting path

Five of the seven vaults you would search for no longer run one.

Options vaults evaluated on whether the per-vault track record is verifiable, what the depositor actually pays, what the documentation says the strategy loses in a drawdown, and the audit and operating record.

category.options_vaults.promise Reviewed on whether the per-vault track record is verifiable, what the depositor actually pays, what the documentation says the strategy loses in a drawdown, and the audit and operating record.

Start with the smart category assistant or jump straight into quick questions. Both paths narrow to the same recommendation standard.

How we review

Recommendation first, comparison only if needed.

Reviewed and rechecked on the current cycle.

Commercial relationships disclosed before clickout.

Audit

Infrastructure

Methodology

2026.04.0

published 2026-04-27

Providers tracked

670+

across 75 categories

Last verified

2026-08-06

editorial freshness

Editorial board

4

audit-log live

Decision guide

What matters most before choosing in this category

Start by asking whether the vault still exists, because in this category that is a real question — five of the seven protocols a buyer would search for no longer run an options vault at all. Then ignore the advertised APY, which is a backward-looking premium figure that says nothing about the strategy's worst outcome: a covered call caps your upside and keeps your downside, and that only shows up in a drawdown. What actually separates these is whether you can check the returns yourself. The neutral yield index that tracks more than fifteen thousand pools contains exactly one vault from this pool, so for the rest there is no independent series to compare against a claim — and the one protocol that does publish an auditable per-vault share price is the one whose numbers look worst.

Key question

Does this vault still run, and when did the protocol last ship one?

Key question

Can you verify the per-vault return anywhere other than the vendor's own dashboard?

Key question

What does the protocol itself document that the strategy loses when the market moves against it?

Current editor lead

SOFA.org (Earn and Surge)

RFQ-priced structured products settled into ERC-1155 vaults, where the user picks the strike and tenor instead of joining an epoch.

Data checked Aug 2026

RFQ-priced structured products settled into ERC-1155 vaults, where the user picks the strike and tenor instead of joining an epoch. Strongest on published cost to the depositor (9/10): Both fees are stated as live rates with the base to which each applies - 15% of the user's option premium as a base trading fee, and a further 5% settlement fee "charged against the total Gross Upside Payout" only "in the event of a 'winning' payout occurring for the user". The payoff equations then carry the fees… Weakest on verifiable per-vault track record (4/10): SOFA publishes the payoff arithmetic rather than the history. The fees page renders the premium definition in LaTeX as Premium = Notional_{Deposit} * (1 + AAVE_{1MonthAverage} - BaseYield)^{Full Days/365} - Notional_{Deposit}. Corrected during verification: the draft presented a de-braced rewriting of that formula… Published price: "SOFA will collect 15% of the user's option premium as a base trading fee. Furthermore, in the event of a 'winning' payout occurring for the user, a further 5% settlement fee will be charged against the total Gross Upside Payout." (fetched 2026-08-06; matched…

Best for

Published cost to the depositor — 9/10Audit, incident and operating record — 8/10

Main tradeoff

The 5% settlement fee is charged on the gross upside payout, so the winning scenario is the expensive one - the fee stack reaches 20% precisely when the structure pays. And the FAQ's "strong capital protection" language should not be read literally: SOFA is the settlement layer, the market maker sets the price, and the user carries the short-option outcome.

Verify before signup

"SOFA will collect 15% of the user's option premium as a base trading fee. Furthermore, in the event of a 'winning' payout occurring for the user, a further 5% settlement fee will be charged against the total Gross Upside Payout." (fetched 2026-08-06; matched character-for-character in the page HTML, straight apostrophes as shown, preceded in the source by a money-bag emoji inside a blockquote)

Weighted criteria

Verifiable per-vault track record32%

Published cost to the depositor24%

Documented loss profile in a drawdown22%

Audit, incident and operating record22%

Leading options

Shared shortlist for this category

These providers are pulled from the same category comparison catalog used in validation, so the category page, comparison page, and provider reviews stay aligned.

Derive Vaults (Harvest and Safe Harvest, formerly Lyra)

Tokenised covered-call and covered-call-spread vaults on an on-chain options exchange, with each vault's share price served from a public API.

Editor lead

Tokenised covered-call and covered-call-spread vaults on an on-chain options exchange, with each vault's share price served from a public API. Strongest on verifiable per-vault track record (9/10): An unauthenticated public endpoint returns every vault's share price in underlying units with a block number and timestamp. Read 2026-08-06 (block 43011000, block_timestamp 1786043615 = 2026-08-06T19:13:35Z): LBTC Basis Trade base_value 1.117644 (usd_tvl $566,859.71); LBTC Covered Call Spread 0.925772 ($9,292.79)… Weakest on published cost to the depositor (2/10): The vault help pages describe strategy and mechanics but publish no depositor fee. The Harvest Strategy page discusses yield and points and directs readers thus: "It is important users consult the up-to-date information on yield and points programs in the app before entering a strategy, as these are subject to… Published price: No depositor-facing vault fee could be found, and the absence was tested rather than assumed. Corrected during verification: I loaded both vault help pages in full and searched their text - the string 'fee' does not occur anywhere in the body of…

Best for: Verifiable per-vault track record — 9/10

Rysk (Rysk V12 and Rysk Premium)

Covered-call and cash-secured-put positions priced through an RFQ network, plus curator-run pooled vaults on HyperEVM.

Covered-call and cash-secured-put positions priced through an RFQ network, plus curator-run pooled vaults on HyperEVM. Strongest on documented loss profile in a drawdown (9/10): The clearest principal-loss disclosure in the pool: "LP capital is at risk. If options written by the pool expire deep ITM, the pool pays out more collateral than it collected in premiums, reducing NAV per share. In extreme scenarios, LPs could lose a significant portion of their deposited capital." It also documents… Weakest on verifiable per-vault track record (3/10): For the pooled product the valuation is an operator input: "The price per share is the ratio of the pool's net asset value (NAV) to the total share supply. It is set off-chain by governance (signed by the Governor) and submitted on-chain at each epoch boundary", with the document adding that "The smart contract stores… Published price: "The pool has two fee tiers, both expressed in basis points (bps): Option Sale Fee | % of option premium charged on each write | Split between protocol and curator; Curator Fee Share | % of the option sale fee that goes to the curator | Curator (Manager…

Best for: Documented loss profile in a drawdown — 9/10

Typus Finance DeFi Options Vaults

Covered-call, call-selling and put-selling vaults on Sui that auction each epoch's options to whitelisted bidders.

Covered-call, call-selling and put-selling vaults on Sui that auction each epoch's options to whitelisted bidders. Strongest on published cost to the depositor (9/10): The most complete depositor-side fee disclosure in the pool: deposit, withdrawal and claim fees each stated at 0.0%, the premium share stated as "Harvest & Compound Fee: 10-15% of rewards" and explicitly attributed to the depositor - "The fee is charged by Typus to the Option Seller (who is also the Vault Depositor)… Weakest on audit, incident and operating record (5/10): The audit page names dates in prose and auditors in bullets beneath each: "Typus DOV v2 successfully underwent an audit in October 2023." followed by the bullet "MoveBit"; "Typus DOV v1 completed smart contract audits by two institutions in May 2023." followed by "MoveBit" and "OtterSec"; plus "Typus completed a smart… Published price: "DeFi Options Vaults - Deposit Fee: 0.0% / Withdrawal Fee: 0.0% / Claim Fee: 0.0% (The claim fee 0.1% has been waived at Typys V2.) / Harvest & Compound Fee: 10-15% of rewards - The fee is charged by Typus to the Option Seller (who is also the Vault…

Best for: Published cost to the depositor — 9/10

Browse this network

Methodology

How this category is reviewed

Reviewed on whether the per-vault track record is verifiable, what the depositor actually pays, what the documentation says the strategy loses in a drawdown, and the audit and operating record.

Reviewed on: Verifiable per-vault track record, Published cost to the depositor, Documented loss profile in a drawdown, Audit, incident and operating record.

This page is a maintained category surface, not a static marketing block. Review freshness, provider positioning, and recommendation logic should stay consistent with quiz and provider pages.

Frequently asked

Questions people ask before choosing options vaults

Why is the advertised APY not the main criterion here?

Because it is a description of premium already collected, not a forecast, and the risk it omits is the entire product. Selling a covered call caps your upside at the strike while leaving your downside intact, so a vault can post an attractive annualised premium through a calm quarter and hand back more than that in a single move. That is why the heaviest weight here is on whether the per-vault record is verifiable at all, and the second on what the protocol documents about its own loss profile. An APY with no checkable series behind it is a claim, and this comparison treats it as one.

Can I check these returns independently?

Almost never, which is the most uncomfortable finding in the category. The neutral yield index that tracks 15,635 pools contains exactly one options vault from this pool — the other seven protocols have zero indexed pools, verified by enumerating the index rather than searching it. So for most of these, the only record of performance is the vendor's own dashboard. One protocol does publish an auditable per-vault share price through a public endpoint, and it is scored highest on track record precisely because you can check it, even though what you find there is not flattering.

How many of these protocols are actually still operating?

Fewer than the search results suggest. Five of the seven names a buyer would naturally look for have stopped running options vaults — one after its vaults were exploited, with the operator stating that all of them would be stopped and decommissioned immediately. Products that stop are listed under discontinued here with what is actually published about them, rather than ranked, because a vault you cannot deposit into is not a choice. Check the operating record before the yield: in this category the base rate of disappearance is higher than the spread between the yields.

REVIEWEDApr 2026METHOD4 criteriaCATEGORYoptions_vaults

Not financial advice · For informational purposes only · Always do your own research

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