FAQ
Frequently asked questions.
Twenty-two questions covering the group, the Vaults product, and the Lending product.
The group
About Tesseract
What does Tesseract do?
Tesseract operates two yield products for institutions. Vaults are MiCA-authorized discretionary portfolio management of crypto-assets, executed through per-client on-chain vaults. Lending is institutional lending infrastructure for the exchanges, neobanks, and wallet providers that distribute crypto to end-users. Both run on the same operational discipline; the regulatory perimeter is different.
What’s the difference between Vaults and Lending?
Vaults are a regulated portfolio management service provided by Tesseract Investment Oy under MiCA. Each client gets their own segregated on-chain vault with a discretionary mandate. Lending is unregulated infrastructure provided by Tesseract Earn Oy, designed for partners to distribute yield to their users (or for the partner’s own treasury) without standing up the custody, credit, and risk stack themselves.
What is the legal structure of the Tesseract group?
The Tesseract group consists of Tesseract Holding Oy (parent company), Tesseract Investment Oy (Crypto-Asset Service Provider authorized under Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (MiCA) by the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority), and Tesseract Earn Oy (technology platform company; SOC 2 Type II and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified). Lending services are provided by Tesseract Earn Oy; lending operations are booked through its wholly-owned UK Special Purpose Vehicles, Tesseract UK Access I Ltd and Tesseract UK Access II Ltd, both incorporated in England and Wales.
Where is Tesseract regulated? What is and isn’t covered?
Tesseract Investment Oy is authorized as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) under Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (MiCA) by the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA). The authorization covers five services: custody and administration of crypto-assets, portfolio management, transfer services, reception and transmission of orders, and advice on crypto-assets.The Vaults product is operated within the scope of this MiCA CASP authorization, specifically the custody, portfolio management, and transfer services limbs. The Lending product, provided by Tesseract Earn Oy, is not a regulated financial service and operates outside the MiCA perimeter to equivalent compliance and risk standards. Crypto-assets are not covered by investor compensation or deposit guarantee schemes.
What sets Tesseract apart?
Tesseract Investment Oy holds a full MiCA CASP authorization; most institutional yield providers do not. The Vaults product is structured as genuine per-client segregation on-chain, not pooled or wrapped; this is what makes it distributable under a regulated portfolio management mandate rather than as a collective investment scheme. On the lending side, Tesseract has operated institutional lending since 2018, with $2.5B+ in originations across multiple market cycles, running on ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II certified infrastructure.
Regulated portfolio management
Vaults
What is a Vault?
A Dedicated Client Vault is a MiCA-authorized discretionary portfolio management mandate operated by Tesseract Investment Oy, executed through a per-client on-chain vault contract. It is not software, not a fund, and not a wrapper. It is regulated portfolio management. Each vault sits in its own smart contract and is managed individually under the MiCA CASP authorization.
Who are Vaults for?
Institutional clients (family offices, treasuries, custodians, ETP providers, and high-net-worth individuals) that want on-chain yield delivered through a regulated mandate with genuine asset segregation. The minimum deposit is approximately $50,000 USDC (or equivalent in WETH / WBTC).
What assets do Vaults support?
USDC, WETH, and WBTC on Ethereum mainnet.
What yields can I expect?
Indicative gross yields are approximately 5–10% for stablecoins (USDC), 4–5% for WETH, and 2–4% for WBTC. These are indicative only and subject to market conditions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
What are the fees?
0.25% management fee on AUM and 30% performance fee on vault profits. No deposit or withdrawal fees. Fees are levied at the vault level and programmatically split.
How are Vaults segregated?
Each client’s assets sit in their own standalone smart contract at all times. Rebalancing and management happen at the individual vault level. Assets never leave the vault to enter a shared pool. This is genuine on-chain segregation, not just accounting separation.
How do withdrawals work?
Amounts covered by available liquidity withdraw instantly in a single transaction. Larger amounts use a three-step scheduled flow that spans up to approximately 24 hours. During market stress, scheduled-withdrawal processing can temporarily slow while positions are unwound.
How is this different from other on-chain yield vaults?
Three structural differences: (1) each client gets their own dedicated vault contract, genuinely separate on-chain, not just accounting separation; (2) non-transferable share tokens, which avoid collective-investment-scheme and securities classification; (3) Tesseract Investment Oy holds a MiCA CASP authorization covering portfolio management, which most competitors do not. The differentiation is regulatory and structural, not a product feature.
What reporting do Vaults clients receive?
Vault state is independently verifiable on-chain: balances, ownership tokens, and contract state can be inspected on any block explorer. Tesseract also provides regular performance reporting with portfolio insights and per-vault transparency.
Lending infrastructure
Lending
Who is Tesseract Lending for?
Exchanges, neobanks, custodians, and wallet providers that want to offer yield on stablecoins and major crypto assets to their users, without standing up the custody, credit, and risk infrastructure themselves.
What’s the difference between Managed and API?
Managed is a white-label deployment: Tesseract provides themed UI, KYC, and end-user onboarding alongside the book operation. API is a direct integration where the partner owns the front-end and KYC; Tesseract operates the book behind the partner’s endpoints. Both paths run on the same custody, credit, and risk infrastructure.
How long does integration take?
Most partners complete the full onboarding flow in 5 days to 2 weeks, depending on entity complexity and how quickly documentation comes together. Individual KYC typically clears in minutes to 1–2 business days, and standard KYB is approved within 2 business days of a clean document submission. Once onboarding is complete, a Managed deployment is typically live within a further 7 days; API integrations run 14–21 days depending on engineering capacity and the scope of front-end work.
How is yield generated?
Tesseract lends to a diversified book of reputable, creditworthy counterparties: CeFi desks, market-makers, and delta-neutral prop firms. Loans are over-collateralized and operated within a documented credit-risk framework, with position-level transparency surfaced in monthly reporting.
What assets does Lending support?
Lending supports a broad spectrum of digital assets including Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins, and a wide range of altcoins (for example Litecoin, Solana, Cardano, Polkadot, Avalanche, Dogecoin, DAI, ATOM, NEAR, Kusama), with the option to consider additional assets depending on market conditions.
Why do we verify identities (KYB/KYC)?
Verification is a legal obligation under the EU AML Directives, FATF Recommendations, Finland’s national AML Act, and other applicable AML regulations. Beyond compliance, KYB and KYC protect both Tesseract and our partners from fraud, sanctions exposure, and counterparty risk.
How long do you retain KYB/KYC information?
Tesseract retains KYB and KYC records for up to 5 years, in line with EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive requirements and Finland’s national AML Act.
Can we reuse verification done by another regulated provider?
If the previous verification was completed through Sumsub, it may be possible to reuse part or all of it, subject to our own review. Verifications completed outside Sumsub cannot be reused directly, though supporting documents can often be accepted if they meet our recency and quality requirements.