AlphaYields — ayCFX
Conflux Integration Grants Application
Application Introduction
AlphaYields brings CFX holders a yield that beats native staking without its price risk — and hands Conflux the on-chain activity that yield creates.
ayCFX is a Conflux-native yield token. Against native staking’s directional 10-14%, it targets a price-neutral 12.5-26.6%, built on 3+ years of measured perp-funding data — and it lands as real on-Conflux activity: sticky xCFX liquid-staking TVL, trading and composability volume around ayCFX on eSpace, and (phase two) genuine demand on a CFX borrow market.
The ask is two moves. One: a $27,000 integration grant to deploy ayCFX. Two: help grow staked-CFX (xCFX) liquidity and deepen CFX borrow liquidity — with a borrow market in place we add a leveraged-staking (looping) sleeve and take ayCFX past a modeled 30%+ APY (contingent on that market; not deployable today). Close those two gaps and Conflux gets a flagship yield asset that both out-yields native staking and feeds its own DeFi economy.
1. Name of the project
AlphaYields — and specifically ayCFX, a Conflux-native yield-bearing token proposed under this grant. AlphaYields is a non-custodial DeFi protocol that productizes actively-managed, risk-controlled yield into ERC-4626 vault tokens. Its live products (ayUSD, ayFLOW, ayETH) run today on IPOR (IPOR Fusion) vault infrastructure, exposed as ERC-4626 tokens and cross-chain via LayerZero, with realized yield tracked through on-chain share price rather than any advertised rate.
2. Problem statement and proposed solution
Today a CFX holder has essentially one option to make idle CFX productive: native staking, at a documented 10-14%. That yield is real but it is directional — the holder carries full CFX price exposure — and it is undifferentiated, so capital rotates out the moment a higher incentive appears elsewhere. There is no productized, risk-managed, price-neutral yield instrument for CFX, and the ecosystem’s on-chain yield surface (liquid-staking depth, borrow-side liquidity, perp open interest) is thin, which is what caps every strategy that could otherwise be built on top of it.
Our proposed solution is ayCFX: a bespoke, Conflux-native ayToken whose core is a delta-neutral staking-carry strategy — hold CFX liquid staking, hedge the price exposure with a short CFX perpetual (executed on-chain on Hyperliquid), and collect both the staking yield and the funding. The result is a productized yield that is (a) measured, not projected, (b) largely price-neutral, and therefore © sticky — hedged capital does not flee drawdowns. What lands on Conflux is exactly the activity the ecosystem is short of: liquid-staking TVL in xCFX, trading and composability volume around ayCFX on eSpace, and — as a second phase — borrow-side demand.
The ask has two parts: a $27,000 integration grant to deploy ayCFX, and ecosystem support to grow staked-CFX (xCFX) liquidity and deepen CFX borrow liquidity. The borrow market is the unlock — with it, ayCFX adds a leveraged-staking (looping) sleeve targeting a modeled 30%+ APY (contingent on that market, not deployable today), against 12.5-26.6% for the delta-neutral core and 10-14% for native staking.
3. Alignment with the Conflux Network
This is a contribution, not an extraction proposal, and that framing is deliberate. On a thin ecosystem the strongest grant argument is not a headline yield number; it is that every dollar we deploy feeds back exactly what the ecosystem needs.
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Benefit to the ecosystem / developers. ayCFX gives Conflux a flagship, productized yield asset that other protocols can integrate as a building block — a yield-bearing CFX token to pair, collateralize, and compose with. A verifiable ERC-4626 yield primitive with a live on-chain share price is exactly the kind of reference integration that lowers the bar for the next builder.
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Economic benefit (assets and transactions on-chain). The strategy mechanically produces on-Conflux inputs: sticky liquid-staking TVL in xCFX (hedged, retention-positive), trading and composability volume around ayCFX on eSpace, and — under the phase-two borrow-market work — borrow-side demand that seeds a lending venue Conflux currently lacks.
4. Competitive edge
The differentiator is verification and construction, not a yield claim. Yield on ayCFX is anchored to on-chain share price (NAV), reproducible from public data, not an advertised APY. The strategy is active but disciplined under a single design principle we hold across every product — humans judge, automation executes — and it is built on infrastructure that already runs live in production (ayUSD, ayFLOW, ayETH) rather than on a testnet promise. The delta-neutral construction proposed here is not a paper design: AlphaYields has already run it across Hedera, GMX, and Katana, with a documented ~6.58% net on the Hedera implementation (liquid staking + short perp hedge). On Conflux the underlying economics are stronger, as the analysis below shows.
5. Links
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Website: https://alphayields.ai
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Socials (X): https://x.com/alphayields_ai
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Chat group (Discord): https://discord.com/invite/alphayields
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Documentation: https://alphayields.ai/docs
6. Conflux eSpace grant recipient wallet address
0xe8c7C520426746141D0921034bEc0F0315ccb88e
7. Are you an incorporated startup?
Currently incorporating with a BVI strucuture.
Technical Introduction
1. Problem statement (recap)
CFX holders lack a productized, risk-managed, price-neutral yield instrument. Native staking is directional and undifferentiated; the ecosystem’s yield surface (LST depth, borrow liquidity, perp OI) is thin and caps everything built on it.
2. Existing solutions and feasibility study
The only comparable existing option is Conflux native staking (10-14% stated) and, via Nucleon, its liquid-staking wrapper (xCFX). Neither is a managed, hedged product.
Feasibility summary (full detail in the Technical Proposal; source: CFX Delta-Neutral Opportunity Assessment, prepared 2026-07-31, funding data as full paginated history across four venues, Nucleon xCFX verified on-chain via eSpace RPC, TVL from DefiLlama):
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The hedge leg is paid and measured. CFX perp funding has been positive across every major venue (Binance, Bybit, OKX, Hyperliquid) in every full year since 2024 — evidence the carry is structural, not a single-venue artifact. AlphaYields runs fully on-chain, so the hedge executes on Hyperliquid, which is also the strongest venue in the data: +13.4%/yr funding carry over the full ~3.2-year history; the four-venue trailing-90-day range is +2.2% to +10.4%/yr.
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Stacked on the documented staking rate, the full delta-neutral construction lands at a modeled 12.5-26.6%/yr in the current regime — above both our Hedera implementation and our internal portfolio target under nearly every scenario.
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Feasibility is gated by liquidity, not by the strategy. Both legs are thin today: Nucleon xCFX TVL ≈ $0.57M; aggregate CFX perp OI ≈ $14.0M. Deployable capacity today is therefore only ~$0.5-2M. This is the specific constraint the grant is designed to move.
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One honest gap: the 10-14% staking rate is Conflux’s documentation figure. Nucleon’s current contract exposes no share-price method, so the rate is not yet independently on-chain-verifiable. We treat this as a stated risk and a work item (verify with the Nucleon/Conflux team, or use a dedicated staking pool with transparent accounting).
3. Purpose of the system
To deploy ayCFX — a Conflux-native ERC-4626 yield token — whose realized yield comes from a delta-neutral staking-carry strategy, with capacity that scales as the two ecosystem liquidity gaps close.
4. Scope
In scope: ayCFX vault deployment on Conflux eSpace via IPOR (IPOR Fusion); LayerZero cross-chain wiring; the delta-neutral strategy engine and its four-venue funding pipeline; a public on-chain dashboard and reproducible data package; and phase-two groundwork for an xCFX borrow market to unlock a leveraged-staking sleeve. Out of scope for this grant: any token sale (see No-Sale terms) and any custody of user assets (the protocol is non-custodial throughout).
5. Objectives and success criteria
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ayCFX deployed and verified on Conflux eSpace, with realized yield readable from on-chain share price.
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A live delta-neutral position contributing measurable on-Conflux staking TVL (xCFX) and eSpace volume.
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A published, reproducible verification pipeline (anyone can reproduce the reported figures from on-chain and public venue data).
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A concrete feasibility spec for the phase-two borrow market.
6. Definitions and abbreviations
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ayToken / ayCFX — AlphaYields yield-bearing vault token; ayCFX is the Conflux-native instance.
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LST — liquid-staking token (here, Nucleon xCFX).
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Delta-neutral — a position whose net price exposure to the underlying (CFX) is ~zero.
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Funding / funding carry — the periodic payment between long and short perp holders; positive funding pays shorts.
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OI — open interest.
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NAV / share price — net asset value per vault share; the on-chain source of truth for realized yield.
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Looping / leveraged staking — repeatedly supplying an LST as collateral, borrowing the native asset, and reconverting to LST to amplify staking exposure.
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ERC-4626 / IPOR Fusion — the tokenized-vault standard ayCFX exposes, running on IPOR Fusion, the modular vault infrastructure AlphaYields builds on.
7. References
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CFX Delta-Neutral Yield — Opportunity Assessment (2026-07-31; data package with charts and data/summary.json).
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Looping Strategy for Ankr Staked Flow on More Markets (reference implementation of the leveraged-staking archetype).
Technical Proposal
Functional overview
ayCFX is an ERC-4626 vault token deployed on Conflux eSpace through AlphaYields’ IPOR (IPOR Fusion) vault infrastructure, made cross-chain via LayerZero. A deposit mints ayCFX; the vault’s share price accrues as the underlying strategy earns; a redemption burns ayCFX for the underlying plus accrued yield. Realized yield is therefore always readable on-chain as the change in share price — there is no advertised or guaranteed rate.
Under the hood, ayCFX runs three related strategy archetypes, sequenced by what the ecosystem can actually support.
The strategy set, and how each compares to CFX native staking
Native staking is the baseline every alternative is measured against. It earns the documented 10-14% but carries full CFX price exposure and is undifferentiated. The archetypes below are ordered from “deployable now” to “contingent on infrastructure the grant helps build.”
S1 — Delta-neutral staking carry (core). Hold CFX liquid staking (earns the documented staking rate); short CFX perp on Hyperliquid (earns funding). Because AlphaYields runs fully on-chain, the hedge is executed on Hyperliquid rather than any centralized venue. Price exposure nets to ~zero; both legs pay. This is the spine of ayCFX.
| Short-leg venue | Funding net APY, full history | Trailing 90d | Combined at 12% staking |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hyperliquid (execution venue) | +13.4% (1,163d) | +10.4% | +24.4% |
| Bybit | +13.1% (1,256d) | +6.9% | +20.1% |
| Binance | +10.3% (1,256d) | +2.2% | +14.6% |
Bybit and Binance are shown only as corroboration that the funding carry is broad-based and not a Hyperliquid-specific artifact; AlphaYields does not route margin through centralized venues — the hedge runs on Hyperliquid, on-chain.
Figure 1. CFX perp funding, 90-day rolling and annualised — positive (paying shorts) on all four venues since 2024.
Figure 2. Cumulative funding carry from shorting CFX, per venue, funding-only (no staking leg included).
S2 — Pure funding carry (deployable now). CFX spot + short perp, no staking leg: the measured +10-13% funding stream alone, limited only by perp open interest. This runs today at ~$1-2M while the staking leg is rebuilt, and is the fastest path to a live position on Conflux.
S3 — Incentivized eSpace liquidity (optional sleeve). Foundation-boosted DEX/lending programs on eSpace, farmed with reward-token hedging (typical 20-50% windows during incentive programs). Deal-dependent; sized only after S1/S2 are live.
How the set compares to native staking:
| Native CFX staking | ayCFX core (S1, delta-neutral) | Leveraged staking (contingent) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yield source | Staking rewards | Staking + measured perp funding | Staking, amplified by leverage |
| Modeled range (current regime) | 10-14% (documentation) | 12.5-26.6% | Materially higher, but contingent / unmeasured on CFX |
| Price exposure | Full CFX | ~Neutral | Full LST/native — depeg-sensitive |
| Deployable today on CFX | Yes | Yes, but liquidity-capped (~$0.5-2M) | No — no xCFX borrow market exists |
| Ecosystem contribution | Staking TVL | Staking TVL + eSpace DEX volume | + borrow-side demand |
The point of the table is not just that ayCFX can beat native staking on yield — it is that ayCFX beats it on risk-adjusted yield (price-neutral vs directional) and on what it gives back to the ecosystem.
The leveraged-staking (looping) archetype — Conflux’s gap is the upside
The looping archetype amplifies staking yield: supply the LST as collateral, borrow the native asset against it, swap the borrowed native back to LST, re-supply, repeat. Because the LST and its native asset are highly correlated, this can be run at high leverage under a correlated-asset (“E-Mode”) configuration.
We have worked this out in full on a directly comparable ankr-staked LST market (the Looping Strategy on More Markets reference). There the mechanics are:
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Supply ankrFLOW → borrow FLOW → swap FLOW→ankrFLOW → re-supply.
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Position size is a geometric series: Total Collateral = Initial × (1 − r^(n+1))/(1 − r), with r = LTV × (1 − slippage); the leveraged ceiling is Initial / (1 − LTV×(1−slippage)).
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At a correlated-asset LTV of 97% and a conservative ~5.2x leverage (4-5 loops), an ~8.9% base staking yield is transformed to a modeled ~40% APR; liquidation would require the LST to depreciate ~21% relative to its native asset — an unusual event for a correctly-accruing LST.
Why this matters for Conflux specifically: this archetype is not deployable on Conflux today, because Conflux has essentially no xCFX borrow-side liquidity — there is no deep lending market to borrow CFX against staked CFX. That absence is the gap. It is also the opportunity: if the grant helps catalyze an xCFX borrow market, ayCFX can add a leveraged-staking sleeve on top of the delta-neutral core, lifting realized yield well above the S1 range while generating exactly the borrow-side demand the ecosystem is missing. We deliberately do not put a CFX looping APY number in this proposal — the inputs (a live borrow market, its LTV/E-Mode parameters, its borrow rate) do not exist yet, so any figure would be fabricated. It is scoped as contingent phase-two upside, with the reference math attached so the ceiling is transparent.
The liquidity gap — the item Conflux can change
The construction does not scale today for one reason: both legs are thin. This is the specific item this grant addresses.
| Parameter | Now | Needed for $10-20M | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liquid-staking TVL (Nucleon xCFX) | $0.57M | $10-20M | ~18-35x |
| CFX perp open interest (4 venues) | $14.0M | $70-130M | ~5-9.5x |
Context that makes this recovery, not creation from zero: Nucleon TVL already stood at $11.6M in March 2024 — the lower bound of the target — before declining with the cycle. On the perp side, HBAR (a comparable-tier asset) carries ~$41.8M OI today, so the target is within reach for an asset of CFX’s profile.
Figure 3. Nucleon (xCFX) liquid-staking TVL vs its 2023 peak — the capacity constraint on the staking leg. The ask is recovery plus growth, not creation from zero.
What we contribute in return: our staking leg is sticky xCFX LST TVL that does not flee drawdowns because it is hedged; ayCFX brings trading and composability volume on eSpace and, in phase two, borrow-side demand for a lending venue Conflux currently lacks; and the product gives CFX holders a 12-25% delta-neutral yield — the strongest retention argument a token ecosystem can offer. (The perp hedge itself runs on Hyperliquid, keeping the strategy fully on-chain and non-custodial.)
Legal / licensing
The protocol is non-custodial: user assets remain in on-chain vaults the user controls; AlphaYields never takes custody. ayCFX is a utility yield instrument, not an offered security, and this grant involves no token sale (consistent with the No-Sale rule). Strategy execution follows a fixed design principle — humans judge, automation executes — with no discretionary custody of user funds. The vault code path reuses AlphaYields’ audited production architecture; the CFX-specific integration receives its own security review under this grant.
Non-functional overview
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Usability. A single deposit mints ayCFX; a single redemption exits. Realized yield is visible as on-chain share price on a public dashboard — no dashboards of promised APYs, just the live NAV.
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Reliability. Funding is measured across four independent venues, evidence the carry is structural; execution is fully on-chain on Hyperliquid, keeping the whole strategy non-custodial rather than routing margin through centralized venues. Single-venue execution concentrates venue risk on Hyperliquid — managed by conservative sizing, not hidden — and all reported figures are reproducible from a published data pipeline.
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Performance. The delta-neutral core targets low drawdown by construction; because execution is on-chain and single-venue, the carry leg carries Hyperliquid’s profile — worst drawdown −13.7% over the full history (CFX is more volatile than HBAR) — managed via position sizing and exit discipline rather than venue diversification.
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Implementation. ERC-4626 vault on AlphaYields’ IPOR (IPOR Fusion) infrastructure, deployed to Conflux eSpace, LayerZero-wired for cross-chain, reusing live production infrastructure (ayUSD/ayFLOW/ayETH).
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User interface. Deposit/withdraw flows and a live share-price/traction dashboard, consistent with AlphaYields’ existing product UI.
Total Budget
1. Grant size requested: $27,000 (USD-equivalent).
2. Justification. Every line ties to a concrete on-chain ecosystem outcome; nothing funds a token or user-fund custody.
| Activity | Amount | Ecosystem outcome |
|---|---|---|
| ayCFX contract integration + eSpace deployment (IPOR Fusion ERC-4626 vault, LayerZero wiring, contract verification) | $10,000 | A verified, composable yield primitive live on eSpace |
| Strategy engine + venue funding pipeline + execution & operational setup (incl. gas, position setup) | $9,000 | Live delta-neutral position → sticky xCFX TVL + eSpace volume |
| Security review of the CFX-specific integration | $6,000 | Auditable, safe integration path for the ecosystem |
| Public dashboard + reproducible on-chain data pipeline + milestone reporting | $2,000 | Transparent, reproducible verification for the community |
| Total | $27,000 |
Development Roadmap
| Milestone | Timeline | Funding | Deliverables / specification |
|---|---|---|---|
| M1 — Integration, deployment & strategy activation | Weeks 1-2 | $22,000 | ayCFX ERC-4626 vault deployed and verified on Conflux eSpace via IPOR (IPOR Fusion); LayerZero cross-chain wiring live; public share-price dashboard and reproducible on-chain data pipeline published; delta-neutral position live (S1/S2) with the funding pipeline; first on-chain share-price accrual; security review of the CFX integration complete. |
| M2 — Initial traction | Week 3 | $5,000 | Demonstrable early traction: measured growth in ayCFX TVL and depositors, capacity scaled with on-chain checkpoints (staged, to manage funding compression); published feasibility + integration spec for an xCFX borrow market (the phase-two looping unlock); public traction report. |
Milestone completion is confirmable by the community directly on-chain (deployed/verified contracts, live share price, reported OI and TVL) — deliverables are chosen so progress is externally verifiable, not self-reported.
Team
| Name | Role | Relevant experience |
|---|---|---|
| Filipe Leonor | Founder & Lead Strategist | Founded and scaled a multi-location operating business before moving into web3 in 2020; leads AlphaYields strategy and protocol direction. |
| Bogdan Ivaniuk | Co-founder & CTO | Leads protocol engineering and the IPOR (IPOR Fusion) / cross-chain architecture. |
The bench
Beyond the leads, the technical team adds specialist engineers — each with 12+ years in their field — spanning quantitative research, machine learning, data, on-chain forensics, protocol engineering, front-end and infrastructure. The bench is led by Bogdan Ivaniuk and is based primarily in Lisbon, Portugal.
| Discipline | Focus areas |
|---|---|
| Quantitative Research | Delta-neutral structuring · Arbitrage · Backtesting · Risk modeling · Portfolio optimization |
| Machine Learning | Strategy automation · Anomaly detection · Agent orchestration · Time-series forecasting |
| Big Data | ClickHouse · On-chain datasets · SQL analytics · Indexing · Data modeling |
| On-chain Analysis | Vault & smart-contract analysis · Transaction forensics · Audits & investigations |
| Protocol Engineering | Vault architecture · Solidity · Omnichain / LayerZero · Security analysis |
| Front-end | React / Next.js · Wallet integration · Web3 / wagmi · Data visualization |
| DevOps & Infrastructure | Keeper bots · Docker · CI/CD · Monitoring |
Terms of Use
I agree to all of the following terms of use in applying to a Conflux Ecosystem Grant:
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I have read and understood the Conflux Grants Ecosystem Overview.
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I have read about and understood that the Conflux Technical Grants are subject to a No-Sale rule.
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I agree to provide KYC information to the Conflux Foundation for the sake of overall ecosystem security.
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I understand that I will be required to follow public grant reporting requirements.