Dutch crypto-finance protocol Tori Finance said its institutional-grade delta-neutral yield product, strUSD, attracted $50 million in pre-deposit commitments before its official launch, hitting its cap in seven days.
Tori said strUSD offers an annualized yield of about 12%. The return, it said, comes from a global carry trade strategy long used by traditional financial institutions rather than from capital recycling inside crypto markets. Under that model, funds are borrowed in low-interest currencies, allocated to higher-yield markets, and hedged in foreign exchange markets to lock in U.S. dollar-denominated returns. Tori said the result is a yield stream with low correlation to crypto market cycles.
Bringing an institutional strategy on-chain
Tori founder Samed Duzcay said this type of trade has historically been used mainly by large institutions such as pension funds and banks. He said the setup typically requires tens of millions of dollars in capital and involves local bank accounts, custody arrangements, tax handling, and compliance approvals.
Tori said it is using on-chain tokenization to open that institutional strategy to retail users. Users can deposit USDC or USDT to receive the synthetic dollar asset trUSD, then stake it to obtain strUSD. The asset uses the ERC-20 standard and can be integrated with DeFi protocols including Morpho, Pendle, and Curve. Tori added that it can also be used as collateral in lending markets to amplify yield.
Audit, risk controls and contract security
The protocol said it builds an on-chain balance sheet through zero-knowledge proofs and trusted execution environments, while independent verification firm Accountable provides real-time audits of off-chain funds. Digital asset investment firm RockawayX serves as the risk manager and anchor liquidity provider, according to Tori.
On smart contract security, Tori said its contracts have been audited by Sherlock and Nethermind, and that Hypernative has been added for around-the-clock security monitoring. All contract upgrades are subject to a 24-hour delay mechanism.
Tori said its goal is to bring neutral-yield strategies used by traditional financial institutions for decades into on-chain finance and connect real-world yield with DeFi infrastructure.