Catalysis Mainnet is Live on Ethereum Today

Read official press release here.

Today, Catalysis is live on Ethereum Mainnet.

For the first time, institutional capital can secure their DeFi vault positions natively with programmable risk coverage backed by real delegated capital on EigenLayer.

With this, we solve the dilemma of "why won't institutions deploy seriously into DeFi?".

We are giving institutions the ability to define their downside before deploying a single dollar into onchain vaults.

Here's why this changes DeFi vaults permanently and what that actually means for institutions.

Why vaults? Why native?

First question: why vaults?

According to us, vaults are the most mature financial vehicles that DeFi has built. They aggregate strategy, liquidity, and execution into a single deposit surface.

Look at the numbers:

Morpho deposits had already crossed $11B.
Apollo Global is coming onchain through Morpho. The Ethereum Foundation is deploying directly into Morpho vaults.
Yearn's V3 vaults handle 9-figure positions.
Aave vaults process over $80B every month.

The capital is institutional, the surface is live, and the demand is real, today.

The second question was harder: Why vault-native risk coverage?

Coverage for vaults already existed in some form: external protocols, protocol reserve, governance-voted payouts, and others.

So why wasn't that enough?

High-level, here’s why:

External coverage was never designed for how institutions deploy capital. It sits outside the vault, gets purchased separately, and pays out through a committee or governance votes.

By the time it matters, it's already too late.

So we kept going: What would institutions actually trust?

Only something that is:

Bound at the moment of deposit
Backed by capital already committed to underwriting that risk
Enforced deterministically, not subjectively

That left only one design: Coverage that is native to the vault.

This brings us to one tangent that joins all the dots: Coverage that is native to the vault.

What Catalysis unlocks for DeFi

Catalysis with vault-native risk coverage unlocks something DeFi has never had:

The ability to deploy capital with defined, enforceable downside.

For the first time, an institution can look at a DeFi vault, see coverage bound to it at the protocol level, and define their downside before deploying a single dollar.

The coverage contract is live before they deposit.
The capital backing it is committed, slashable and verifiable onchain.
If a covered event occurs, the payout is deterministic and enforced by code.

And this doesn’t just change one product or one market. It changes the entry point to DeFi itself.

Vaults are where capital enters. Coverage is now where risk is defined.

Bring the two together and Catalysis makes the whole DeFi investable for the institutional demand that’s currently waiting on the sidelines.

So, what's live on Catalysis mainnet today

Today, covered vaults are live on Morpho, starting with the Gauntlet-curated WETH vault. Risk coverage is onchain, enforceable, and backed by real delegated capital.

EigenYields is the first capital delegator, with capital committed on EigenLayer from day one.

The full lifecycle — CoverPool creation, coverage activation, payout and settlement — is operational.

Expansion to more Morpho vaults and other vault platforms like Euler, Nest Credit are coming soon.

Further, integrations and partnerships with curators, neobanks, structured yield products, fintech platforms are in the pipeline.

Behind the scenes, there has been a lot of effort and coordination to make this launch possible. Most critical of them were:

Multiple audit rounds with Certora and Sigma Prime.
Real-time monitoring with Guardrail post-deployment.

Coverage only matters if it actually pays out, so the system behind it had to be airtight.

Formally, the protocol is open for coverage requests from today.

What comes next for Catalysis

Mainnet launch done. Expansion is already underway with more Morpho vaults and support for other vault platforms like Euler and Nest Credit coming soon.

The broader vision hasn't changed: every DeFi vault should have native risk coverage.

Every institution sitting on the sidelines should have a defined, enforceable way to enter. We're building toward that.

If you're a vault curator, a capital allocator, or an institution evaluating onchain deployment, the infrastructure is live. Come build with us.